The road to recovery

<Addendum

I am amazed at how resilient the human body is, or at least a woman's body, after pregnancy. I always wondered how long it would take to feel like myself again. Of course, two weeks later, it's still a little hard to tell since the lack of sleep kind of leaves me in a fog all day. But that night I was full of energy! I was able to start nursing Jack soon after the delivery, and the three of us spent the next few hours hanging out together while waiting to be moved to post-partum.
We made a few calls to our family who we knew were up and waiting by the phone, and I sent out a text message to a bunch of our friends with the good news. Surprisingly, a number of people wrote back. Who knew that so many people responded to text messages at 3am? After things had settled down and I was allowed out of bed my first mission was to find some food! Oddly, none was available at that hour. But Jon was able to scrounge up half a Power Bar and Nurse Juanita was able to find me a can of ginger ale. Which brings me to my new love.
Those who know me well are aware of my inclination for caffeinated beverages, more specifically tea and coke. It really has nothing to do with the caffeine, I just love the taste. I made some major cut backs early on in the pregnancy, but since most doctors agree that 300mg or less of caffeine a day is fine, I became less strict as the months wore on. But now that I'm a nursing mama, and I enjoy as much sleep as possible at night, I'm trying to find some alternatives to my favorites, ergo we now stock the fridge with ginger ale and I'm able to enjoy a cup of hot decaf tea, as long as it's got plenty of milk and sugar. Chocolate is another story, I'm craving it more now than I ever did while pregnant!

So anyway, we finally got moved to our new room around 4am. I thought this would be the end of the night for us and the beginning of some rest, but the nurses had a different idea. Soon after we arrived they came in to give us the low-down on our stay. I soon learned to expect nurses in the room about every hour or so. Between the pediatric checks for Jack and the vital checks for me, it was impossible to get any rest. But I don't think I could have slept anyway. As soon as the galley opened at 6:30am I was on the phone ordering breakfast. This was my first hospital stay since being born myself, so I was pretty impressed with free meals, especially the celebratory steak and sparkling cidar, and I especially enjoyed the adjustable bed, although it was pretty squeaky. Jon, on the other hand, got to enjoy sleeping on the convertible chair. All in all, I have to say the the staff took very good care of us, even if that care always occured right when I was trying to fall asleep.
That afternoon we had our first visitors, and Jon changed his and Jack's first poopy diaper. Really, I never knew I would get so excited about burps and poopy diapers. Jon also got peed on. I'm proud to say that while this kind of incident has befallen Jon on several occasions, it has yet to happen to me! Also, that evening Jack got to meet his Marmie and Poppa for the first time. The consensus that first day was that he looked more like me. But since then, most people agree that he definitely takes after Jon. Especially after looking at Jon's baby pictures. I'm beginning to wonder if, in addition to all those other hormones circulating my body, that there are also super-energy hormones that get released after having a baby. While I was somewhat worn out with all the activity of the night before, I felt fantastic that first day in the hospital. Then came the first night, and Jon and I soon realized that our dyatime quiet and sleepy little boy loves to be held all night long. It's frustrating as a new parent, when you can't get your baby to calm down yourself, but ironically, everytime the nurses would bring him back from a check-up, he would be sleeping soundly in his little bed. I think it had something to do with the swaddle. Those nurses were pros. For some reason I could never get it tight enough. The first night Jack loved being completly swaddled. By the second day he only like being swaddled on his lower half, with his arms free, and by the time we got home he didn't care to be swaddled at all. It was then that I realized how quickly my baby would be growing up!

The next day Jack has his hospital photos taken. He refused to open his eyes for the photo op, but he did manage to flash a few gangsta signs for the camera. We didn't order any prints (for obvious reasons) but you can few the photos here - http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=3778a989-da0b-4392-8803-fb30722488bf.
Although I was feeling great and Jack had had more than enough pee and poop diapers to satisfy the doctors, they made us stay the full 48 hours after delivery before going home. And since the 48 hour mark ocurred in the middle of the night, we had to wait until the next morning to be released. We were very ready to get back to our own house and bed, and home-cooked meals by Marmie. Things have been going very well since then. And even though Jack still prefers to be held between the hours of 10pm and 4am, we feel very blessed to have such a great baby!