Unfortunately for Kristal and I, the Doctors at the hospital request that we stay in the hospital for 48hrs. Thanks to Kate's early arrival, Kristal had missed out on her Group B Strep swab (a routine test normally done at ~36 weeks into a pregnancy - its rare that women have it, and even more rare that it will be passed to the child during birth). As a result, it is policy to keep the patients for 48hrs to see if they develop it.
Anyways, our first night we were in this 3-bed room without any neighbors which was fine and well. Our second night we did have a neighbor. From what we could here/deduce, the woman had also given birth early, but we assume a bit earlier than us as her milk had not come in yet. This wasn't a big deal as the nurses had set up a machine that gave baby formula via a slow drip (it is important for newborns (or anyone) to eat after all).
During the course of the night, her child proceeded to cry all... night... long... On top of that, they proceeded to leave their fairly bright lights on the majority of the night as well (which didn't help us sleep either). In fact, there was a few times that Kate would start crying, we're pretty sure because she heard the other baby crying.
In the morning, after getting next to no sleep, the nurses began doing their morning rounds. If you or your significant other has given birth lately, you know they require you to record when you do feedings and diaper changes (as well as their contents). In the morning, we heard her asking the nurse why her child hadn't required a diaper change all day. The nurse took a look at her log and it appeared her last feeding was recorded at 12:30am (it was about 6:30am at this point). So she asks her, have you fed your baby since this 12:30 feeding? To which she replies "No". Kristal and I overhearing this both dropped our jaws both in shock (that someone would do that) and anger (cause of lack of sleep). It was at this point the nurse began to lean into the woman and "inform" her that babies need to eat every 2-3 hours and should have eaten at least twice in that 6 hour time period. The fact that they had set up a formula drip for her also seemed to aggravate her. We were also very surprised that her mother (who had been there the whole time), who said she was a mother of four, didn't seem to pick up on that either. During a late-night bathroom trip, Kristal had also noticed via a hole in her curtain that she was sleeping with a pillow over her head. So not only was she not feeding her baby, she was ignoring it.
The piece that surprised us the most was that she said she had gone to prenatal classes. How do you go to those and NOT know you have feed a baby? I'm not an expert by any means, but even before prenatal classes (which everyone having a baby should take by the way), I knew that you have to feed a baby often.
So please, care for, and feed your baby!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Preamble
Lets rewind the tape to Sunday (June 21st) at ~8:30pm. Kristal, my mom and dad, my brother, and my aunt and myself are over at my parent's house for some dinner. At this point Kristal had just finished working all weekend and has been plagued with (what she thinks are) braxton-hicks all weekend. So after supper she's sprawled out on the couch a little bit in some discomfort, which my dad seemed to notice was not normal but we proceeded on with our evening.
We head back to our place and decide to chill and watch a couple episodes of CSI. During which time, Kristal is having the worst time sitting still for longer than a few minutes so she was up and about most of the two episodes we watched (read: I watched). Afterwards, it was about 12:30am Monday by this point and I was going to get ready for bed as I worked in the morning. Kristal by this point had managed to find some comfort reclined all the way in our arm chairs in the living room and was mentioning to me some of the symptoms she was having. I took a look at one of our books and it mentioned that a lot of what she was experiencing could be considered pre-labour. While she continued to deal with her body, that little voice that I get when I'm at the poker table that says if I should/should not bet was saying, this is NOT normal. So I decide to get up, and pre-emptively pack our hospital bags. Kristal figured that they were just nasty braxton-hicks and didn't really think anything of it as she was only in "mild to moderate discomfort". During this time, I sent my team lead Ryan a text message saying "Now I'm not saying 'things' are happening, but don't be surprised if I don't show up to work tomorrow (or am late)". At this point its about 1:45am and I hit the hay, but not before plugging in my cell phone, and both of our camera's batteries.
Early the next morning, Kristal wakes me up at about 6-6:15am and says, you know Steve, I've been up all night, and I kinda wanna just go and get checked out. You lay in bed and get some more rest for work** and then get you to take me to the hospital. ** It was at this point in her sentence in my head I was thinking "I am not going to lay here in bed and let you go to the hospital on your own, what are you crazy woman?". So I get up, say to her, "Ok, lets just take things easy, we'll put some more stuff in the bags (just in case), have a shower, have some breakfast, then we'll go. So we're doing just that, and while eating a semi-dry muffin, Kristal gags on it a little and dashes to the bathroom to throw up. In the middle of said vomit-session, I hear a yell from the bathroom "AH! STEVE! MY WATER JUST BROKE!!!". At this point I left a message with work saying I wouldn't be there. After changing Kristal's clothes, informing our parent's and loading the car, we headed down to RUH.
We park in the visitor area, and before heading in, I stop and grab my camera, cause I just have feeling I won't have time to come back and get it. So we get into the main admitting area in the hospital and have to stand in this 20min lineup to get in. I grab a pen from the receptionist and proceed to fill out our pre-admittance forms we received at the hospital tour a few weeks earlier (which I highly suggest for any parent-to-be by the way - the talk the Anesthesialogist gave was awesome!). During said wait Kristal had a large contraction but nothing yet. We finally get to the front of the line and the woman is like, "Are you in labor?" and we inform them of our water breaking, and we are wisked off to another girl for Kristal's information and then this old woman pushed Kristal in a wheelchair to the elevators - and man was she motoring, I damn near had to jog to catch up to her.
We arrive at the 4th floor (where women can do their pre-labor and delivery activities) and the same nurse who had admitted us on Tuesday for a check-up admitted us again. She puts us in a room asks Kristal to put on the gown and get into bed and heads back to the counter. Kristal gets out of her street clothes and into the hospital gown but cannot get into bed. She stops and looks at me and says, "Steve, I really feel like I gotta push". Moments later she has another contraction and strongly suggests I go get someone. Now you know how you see it a lot in movies where the man will run to the doctor/nurse and say, OMG OMG OMG, she's gotta push!!? I wander to the nurse's station with that in mind and say to the nurse, "Now I don't wanna sound dramatic, but she says she's gotta push!". So we head back to the room and she makes Kristal rather uncomfortably get into the bed. She puts on some gloves and gives Kristal the cervix check followed by a "Oh my gosh! Your nine and a half centimeters! And in the wrong room!!". So just as quickly as we were taken upstairs, were we taken to the delivery ward.
By chance, on route to the ward, our Ob/Gyn was just arriving for her morning rounds (we hadn't contacted her). So the nurses flag her down and let her know whats going on. We get to the delivery room that contains three nurses just getting set up (we didn't give em a lot of warning after all). Once set up in the room, we waited maybe 10 minutes before our Doctor gave Kristal the ok to push. Then, 14 minutes later, we have a baby girl. No IV, no Epidural, no pain meds, nothing. Just in out, bang boom, done! The nurses were all saying how wonderful it was to start off the day with such a quick, non-headachey delivery that was (not to mention a hint of jealousy at the delivery time ESPECIALLY considering it is our first!). I have a feeling the nurses, and our Ob/Gyn will be talking about that for awhile.
And voila, we were now parents! hehe, missed out on Father's day by 9 hours.
We head back to our place and decide to chill and watch a couple episodes of CSI. During which time, Kristal is having the worst time sitting still for longer than a few minutes so she was up and about most of the two episodes we watched (read: I watched). Afterwards, it was about 12:30am Monday by this point and I was going to get ready for bed as I worked in the morning. Kristal by this point had managed to find some comfort reclined all the way in our arm chairs in the living room and was mentioning to me some of the symptoms she was having. I took a look at one of our books and it mentioned that a lot of what she was experiencing could be considered pre-labour. While she continued to deal with her body, that little voice that I get when I'm at the poker table that says if I should/should not bet was saying, this is NOT normal. So I decide to get up, and pre-emptively pack our hospital bags. Kristal figured that they were just nasty braxton-hicks and didn't really think anything of it as she was only in "mild to moderate discomfort". During this time, I sent my team lead Ryan a text message saying "Now I'm not saying 'things' are happening, but don't be surprised if I don't show up to work tomorrow (or am late)". At this point its about 1:45am and I hit the hay, but not before plugging in my cell phone, and both of our camera's batteries.
Early the next morning, Kristal wakes me up at about 6-6:15am and says, you know Steve, I've been up all night, and I kinda wanna just go and get checked out. You lay in bed and get some more rest for work** and then get you to take me to the hospital. ** It was at this point in her sentence in my head I was thinking "I am not going to lay here in bed and let you go to the hospital on your own, what are you crazy woman?". So I get up, say to her, "Ok, lets just take things easy, we'll put some more stuff in the bags (just in case), have a shower, have some breakfast, then we'll go. So we're doing just that, and while eating a semi-dry muffin, Kristal gags on it a little and dashes to the bathroom to throw up. In the middle of said vomit-session, I hear a yell from the bathroom "AH! STEVE! MY WATER JUST BROKE!!!". At this point I left a message with work saying I wouldn't be there. After changing Kristal's clothes, informing our parent's and loading the car, we headed down to RUH.
We park in the visitor area, and before heading in, I stop and grab my camera, cause I just have feeling I won't have time to come back and get it. So we get into the main admitting area in the hospital and have to stand in this 20min lineup to get in. I grab a pen from the receptionist and proceed to fill out our pre-admittance forms we received at the hospital tour a few weeks earlier (which I highly suggest for any parent-to-be by the way - the talk the Anesthesialogist gave was awesome!). During said wait Kristal had a large contraction but nothing yet. We finally get to the front of the line and the woman is like, "Are you in labor?" and we inform them of our water breaking, and we are wisked off to another girl for Kristal's information and then this old woman pushed Kristal in a wheelchair to the elevators - and man was she motoring, I damn near had to jog to catch up to her.
We arrive at the 4th floor (where women can do their pre-labor and delivery activities) and the same nurse who had admitted us on Tuesday for a check-up admitted us again. She puts us in a room asks Kristal to put on the gown and get into bed and heads back to the counter. Kristal gets out of her street clothes and into the hospital gown but cannot get into bed. She stops and looks at me and says, "Steve, I really feel like I gotta push". Moments later she has another contraction and strongly suggests I go get someone. Now you know how you see it a lot in movies where the man will run to the doctor/nurse and say, OMG OMG OMG, she's gotta push!!? I wander to the nurse's station with that in mind and say to the nurse, "Now I don't wanna sound dramatic, but she says she's gotta push!". So we head back to the room and she makes Kristal rather uncomfortably get into the bed. She puts on some gloves and gives Kristal the cervix check followed by a "Oh my gosh! Your nine and a half centimeters! And in the wrong room!!". So just as quickly as we were taken upstairs, were we taken to the delivery ward.
By chance, on route to the ward, our Ob/Gyn was just arriving for her morning rounds (we hadn't contacted her). So the nurses flag her down and let her know whats going on. We get to the delivery room that contains three nurses just getting set up (we didn't give em a lot of warning after all). Once set up in the room, we waited maybe 10 minutes before our Doctor gave Kristal the ok to push. Then, 14 minutes later, we have a baby girl. No IV, no Epidural, no pain meds, nothing. Just in out, bang boom, done! The nurses were all saying how wonderful it was to start off the day with such a quick, non-headachey delivery that was (not to mention a hint of jealousy at the delivery time ESPECIALLY considering it is our first!). I have a feeling the nurses, and our Ob/Gyn will be talking about that for awhile.
And voila, we were now parents! hehe, missed out on Father's day by 9 hours.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
1st Post
Hey everyone. At no point do I consider myself a blogger, but I hope to start putting baby updates here for everyone to see (especially those family members that don't live in/around Saskatoon).
I'll start off with some key information that most people seem to ask:
Name: Kate Ashley Smith
Gender: Female
D.O.B.: June 22, 2009 at 8:45am
Height: 19 inches or 48.26 cm
Birth Weight: 5.5 lbs or 2.494758 kgs
Place of Birth: Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon, SK
Doctor (Ob/Gyn): Dr. L. Regush
The rest of the blog entries I'll try to make a bit more readable and photo filled, but I think this is a good start.
I'll start off with some key information that most people seem to ask:
Name: Kate Ashley Smith
Gender: Female
D.O.B.: June 22, 2009 at 8:45am
Height: 19 inches or 48.26 cm
Birth Weight: 5.5 lbs or 2.494758 kgs
Place of Birth: Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon, SK
Doctor (Ob/Gyn): Dr. L. Regush
The rest of the blog entries I'll try to make a bit more readable and photo filled, but I think this is a good start.
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