"Resting" in the hospital.. (vent)

[Serafyna]

This is a little mini-vent.   I just had our third child Monday (yay)..  by Tuesday night I was physically blacking out because I hadn't had more then an hour of sleep through various catnaps.  My body was just shutting down - demanding sleep.   Let me explain...

Monday morning we were up at just after 3AM to get nervously showered and head in for a 5:30AM induction.   We got checked in, hooked up, and the induction began.  After a long, wonderful day.. I gave birth to my son at 10PM.   Well you ladies know the drill -- from Labor and Delivery you wait an hour or two and eventually get moved to post-pardum.   We stay at L&D and I breastfeed.  Around 1AM we're moved to post-pardum.

Now, in post-pardum they want to check the baby and bathe the baby in the nursery.  My husband follows and I stay awake waiting for my child  and husband to come back.  They return but my son's glucose levels are low.  This means they will be re-testing it every few hours and I can't nurse on demand - I need to try to push him to nurse every 2 hours.  Keep in mind I was in active labor all day, so my SON was also awake all day from the contractions.  All he wants to do is sleep.  

This is on top of the blood pressure checks on me, the nurse checking to make sure I've gone to the bathroom, checking my stomach, looking at my discharge.. before you know its 7AM and I still have not slept.

Once the day starts the visitors really pick up - your regular nurse visits, lactation consultants, picture people, food service people bring your tray and pick up your tray, the medical tech takes your BP, house keeping changes the trash, nursery coming in to check the baby every 2-3 hours, not to mention letting you know before and after every shift change who your new nurse is, your new tech and your new nursery nurse.  Plus your OB comes by to see how you're doing, and other random people - like anesthesiology checking on you.   Needless to say by 3AM Tuesday I was collapsing.   My body was just randomly "shutting down"  I finally got two hours of sleep from 4AM until 6AM Tuesday.  Sad.

I told the lactation consultant if I hadn't been a third time Mom and determined to breast feed - I would have been *incredibly* tempted to just send the baby to the nursery and let them give him formula so I could just *sleep*.  I felt myself just wanting to beg to be left alone for 3 straight hours... you wouldn't think thats too much to ask when you've just had a baby?   In their attempt to give excellent customer service - they bombard you with so many people, you never get a moment to yourself.  My nurse told me the floor has "quiet" time between 2-4 .. both AM and PM.   I guess that's when Moms are supposed to get their sleep?   *shrug*  The problem with that is that no one tells you about the quiet time, and in my case with Josh's low blood sugar, if I was due for a feeding or blood sugar testing for him during that time - nursery still had to be there. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge them making sure everything was done right for my son.  I do think they need to figure out a way that people aren't spaced out so that Mom never gets a chance to recover. We're home now and I *finally* got some decent sleep.  7 collective hours last night, between feedings.. it felt like heaven.  

 

[lovetoteachec]

Jan. 24, 2009 at 12:49 AM

Wow, that DOES sound difficult- CONGRATS on your beautiful new baby though! I think moms who are having their third child should be treated differently by the hospital- I think they should be able to refuse services and ask for more services since they are much more experienced than first time moms. I mean, did you really feel after going through this two time prior that you needed all of that attention and checking on? Besides the sugar levels for your son? I only have one daughter and I needed all the check ins, but I think it would get old after a few more kids. What are your thoughts?

[Serafyna]

Jan. 24, 2009 at 1:04 AM

I forgot to mention the peditrician coming by, the charge nurse checking on how our stay was going, calls from the birth certificate registry folks,  the hearing screening... and I am sure several others ;)

I think the timing was just poorly planned, if the people that had to come by, say, all planned near or around lunch to drop in.. or if they enforced the "quiet time" more often for a longer stretch so Mommies could rest... say 1am - 6am..  or maybe had a sign you could put out that indicated if you're not VITAL do not disturb.  In our case the "Picture" lady came by 4 times.  Once after we had already told her no.  The other times were simply because I told her I had been too busy to even consider it.  We even had maintence come to the room twice (we didn't call them, they were checking on something else)! The birth certificate people called us no less then 3 times a day - after we explained we hadn't yet picked a name so it would take us a while.  I felt like I was staying in Grand Central Station!

Definitely something to limit the unnessary visits would be nice.

(Original Poster)