As I said in my previous post, the
moments around Emmett’s actual entrance into the world are a huge blur to me.
The one conscious thought I had as soon as I saw him was that his name was
Emmett. Billy and I had not yet decided on a name going into the hospital. We had
narrowed it down to a few choices, but felt that we needed to meet him before
we decided. I wasn’t even worried about it or even thinking about it when I
first saw him, but his name still popped into my head. I don’t trust my
premonitions very often, and so I didn’t tell Billy what had happened until we
were alone with Emmett in the NICU the next morning, deciding on his name. Billy
was holding him and I asked Emmett what his name should be. “Are you an
Emmett?” His eyes rolled back in his head. “Are you a Dean?” Nothing. “Are you
a Jack?” Nothing. “Are you an Emmett?” and his eyes rolled back in his head
again. So, basically we named our son the same way some people name their dogs.
It also helped that at the time, he was wearing a heart rate monitor on his
foot that had a glowing red light, so he looked a lot like ET (Emmett Thomas).
Plus, we both love Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future and don’t
personally know any other Emmetts, so it was a win win for all.
Emmett wasn’t even on our list of
names until the day before he was born. While I was pregnant, I harassed Billy
to give me a list of names that he liked. He kept saying it was too early. All
the way up until 36 weeks and 2 days, it was too early. We talked about names
the night before I went in to be induced and Billy suggested the name Emmett. I
liked it, but I needed more time to think about it (my family is really big
into names—we overanalyze everything little thing about a name and judge anyone
who doesn’t do the same in naming their child). I still liked Jack the best,
but was hesitant because we have a nephew named Mac and Billy’s brother is
named Zach. I’m not into rhyming. We were going to name him after my dad—Thomas—and
call him Tommy, but Billy said he would only call him Thomas. And Thomas Strong
is kind of hard to say with the ‘s’ at the end of Thomas and the ‘s’ at the
beginning of Strong. Yes, I know, I’m a crazy person. So, we decided that
Thomas would be his middle name. And I liked the name Dean, but Dean Thomas is
a character from Harry Potter. Which, I guess would be cool, but I wasn’t sold
on it. Plus, I also felt like Dean Strong was hard to say with all the ‘n’s. I
know, I have issues!
We also loved that the meaning of Emmett is "powerful". Even though his last name is Strong, so his name literally means "powerful strong". Kind of redundant, but we think it's funny. It's appropriate, because he was such a tough guy in the NICU. His IV came out and he had to get it reinserted and all he did was scrunch up his face in annoyance and then go back to sleep. Not even a cry. He had to have his foot pricked multiple times a day to check his bilirubin levels and he'd never cry for more than a second. So, Emmett it is.
And Thomas is his middle name--named for my dad. Thomas also means "twin", and we like to think it honors the other embryos we tried to put in. He easily could have been a twin, but no such luck. (But I'm also pretty grateful for--I don't know how parents of twins do it!)
After he was born, the doctors took
him off of my chest to do the Apgar test. Then Dr. Izbicki told me to push on
the next contraction. I couldn’t even feel contractions, so I had to look at
the monitor to see when one was starting. And I had no idea why I was pushing,
except that he told me to. How did I give birth while being so oblivious about what
was happening to me? I didn’t even realize I had to deliver the placenta too.
After the placenta was delivered (piece of cake compared to Emmett’s dome), the
doctor started stitching me up. I had to just lay there while everyone got to
take pictures of Emmett and watch him blowing bubbles out of his mouth. They
took Emmett away to the nursery for observation for about an hour and I thought
it was standard procedure, until slowly some information started trickling in. The
pediatrician and nurses didn’t communicate with us at all about what was going
on. They had given him an Apgar score of 7/8 because when he came out, he
wasn’t crying and he was grunting and he looked pretty jaundiced. We thought
his little grunting noise was so cute. I even have a video of Billy and I
laughing about it. We didn’t realize it was because he still had some fluid in
his lungs. When we found out, we felt like terrible parents. We also thought he
was just so cute and tan and remarked on what good coloring he had. Again,
awful parents.
They admitted him to the NICU and
put him on oxygen. The grunting noise he was making followed by a chest x-ray
led the doctors to believe that there was still some fluid in his lungs. They
also put in an IV to give him some antibiotics in case he had an infection. He
had a contusion on his head from the suction cup used to get him out, so they
also gave him an antibiotic ointment. There was also some fluid pooling in the
back of his head that they wanted to keep an eye on.
I only found out all of this the
next day. While I had a wonderful experience with my OBGYN, I was so not
impressed with the doctors and nurses at the NICU. I didn’t even know they had
done a chest x-ray on him until I got the bill for it a month later! My epidural
had worn off after a couple hours, so they let me get up and go see him
finally. He was sleeping peacefully in the warming basket. I was so exhausted
and could barely stand up because I was so sore. But I wanted to touch my baby.
So I got up from my wheelchair and hunched over the warming basket for as long
as I could. I stroked his belly and held his foot until the heat from the
warming basket started making me nauseous and weak. I hadn’t eaten anything
solid since 6 AM and the adrenaline from labor and pushing and meeting Emmett
was starting to wear off. We said goodnight to Emmett and went back to my
hospital room. We finally got to sleep around 2 AM. Poor Billy had to sleep on
those crappy pull out chairs. But I actually probably had it worse. I had to
sleep on the hospital bed that kept inflating and deflating with air. It’s one
of those beds that is supposed to prevent blood clots but it was super annoying
and uncomfortable. We asked multiple people how to turn it off, but no one knew
how. And if we unplugged the bed, it would deflate all the way. That first
night, I was exhausted enough that I didn’t even care.
We woke up at 6 AM to go try and
feed Emmett for his next meal. My milk took about 4 days to come in. We had the
help of a lactation specialist to try and help Emmett and me figure out
breastfeeding. I didn’t realize how hard it would be. The lactation specialist
had really good intentions, but she mostly just stressed me out. She had me all
worried that my milk was never going to come in even though it takes about 3-5
days for most mothers’ milk to come in. I guess since Emmett was so early and
in the NICU, it was a concern that it wouldn’t come in in time. The doctors
asked our permission to feed him formula and we said yes of course. I don’t
really understand why someone would say no to that question. If my baby is
hungry, I want him fed. So we have breastfed and bottle-fed him since day one. Anyway,
the lactation consultant taught me how to hand express my milk since I couldn’t
get anything out with the pump. That was pretty effective at getting my milk to
come in. When she was teaching me, she was rubbing her own breast to show how
it should be done and I was trying it on myself. Then she looks over and sees
Billy rubbing his pec too. In his defense, she was a really good teacher. One
of my favorite memories in the hospital was of me massaging my boobs and then
squeezing out my colostrum. Then, Billy scraped it off my nipple with a spoon
so we could go feed it to Emmett. We were so delirious, but we were laughing so
hard.
The hardest part was teaching
Emmett how to feed. He knew how to suck, but he wouldn’t open his mouth wide
enough to latch onto me. And breastfeeding was so exhausting for him that he
couldn’t do it for very long at first. But, in order to get your milk to come
in, your baby has to stimulate your nipples. So, we would feed him as long as
we could on the breast and then finish with formula or whatever milk I had been
able to finally pump. My milk finally came in on the Saturday after he was born.
I woke up in the middle of the night because I felt these little zaps on my
nipples. I was so happy, but I quickly realized how annoying breastfeeding is.
It’s so amazing, and I feel grateful that I’m able to feed my baby. But, I
don’t get the whole thing about being in love with breastfeeding. It’s
convenient, yeah, but it’s also not very hard to just make formula. And I bond
better with Emmett by playing with him or cuddling with him. I only breastfeed
him because I know that breastmilk is better for him. Oh and then since we were
learning to breastfeed in the NICU, at every shift change, the new nurse would
have some criticism or suggestion that would contradict the previous nurse’s
advice. It was super annoying. Although, one of the nurses was Korean and taught us a Korean way to burp a baby that has been very helpful.
Really, the only breastfeeding advice that I was given that was helpful was from our pediatrician. We saw him the next day after Emmett was discharged and he took one look at me and asked how I was eating and sleeping. Ha! I was so exhausted that I couldn't even get hungry. I hadn't even realized that I was barely eating anything. The pediatrician said to make sure that I'm getting enough sleep and enough nutrition and my milk supply would get so much better. And he was so right. My milk had come in, but I was so stressed about not being able to feed my little preemie enough that I wasn't taking care of myself. The lactation consultant had stressed me out so much that I was trying to pump after every feeding when I really should have been eating and sleeping. After I started doing that, my milk was practically gushing out. Our pediatrician also asked me if I had any friends or family at our house who could be adding to my stress. My parents had left, so that wasn't the case, but we asked all our future visitors to get a hotel. This pediatrician definitely won me over by teaching me that if I'm happy and healthy, then Emmett will be too.
When I was
little, I remember learning (probably on the school bus) that my husband would
see me naked and I was TERRIFIED of getting married for many years after that.
I have since overcome that fear and have even overcompensated by not caring one
bit who sees me naked. Billy gets mad that I walk around naked in front of our
open windows. And now that I’ve had a baby, I care even less. I was a little
worried about having my parents in the room when I delivered. Would it be
awkward? I didn’t want them to see me like that! But once it all started and
they were there and there were spotlights on my legs spread wide open, I didn’t
care at all. Giving birth will take every shred of modesty you have away. I’m
pretty sure I pooped on a table in front of everyone, and I wasn’t even phased.
After I delivered, and while I was trying to get my milk to come in, I was
pretty much just walking around the hospital naked all the time. Nurses kept
asking me if I wanted a gown to cover up the back of my gown which was wide
open. I always said no. I was so exhausted that that would just be one more
thing I’d have to take off for the next feeding. And then when I was figuring
out how to nurse, I would just be topless in the NICU. Luckily there weren’t
any other babies in there, so Billy didn’t have to be embarrassed in front of
other parents. One time, the neonatologist knocked on the door, while I was
feeding Emmett, asking if he could come in. I responded “yes, come in!” and
Billy said, “just a second!” as he tried to cover me up. I didn’t even realize
that the neonatologist was really asking if I was dressed. It’s like I had
forgotten all sense of decency. My sole purpose in life was to feed my baby and
get as much sleep as I could.
I’m extremely grateful that all
Emmett had was jaundice. All the other tests came back normal and he progressed
well every day. But the annoying thing about jaundice is that in order for them
to let Emmett go home, they had to keep checking his bilirubin levels and make
sure they didn’t rebound. What they do is, they put him under the lights for 6
hours. And then, when they see that his levels have gone down, they take him
off the lights for 6 hours. Then, they test again to make sure that his levels
didn’t go back up too much. So, it was a lot of false hope and then
disappointment when Emmett kept rebounding too much. On the last false alarm,
they told us that the only reason they would keep him at the hospital was if he
rebounded by 1 whole point. His levels went up by exactly 1. So, everyday, we
kept thinking we were going home Friday and then Saturday. And then the only
reason we went home on Sunday was because one doctor started discharging us.
The neonatologist was uncomfortable with this because of Emmett’s higher levels,
so he compromised that if we checked them again and they were below 12.9, we
could take him home. They came back at 12.1 and so he let us go home! I’ve
never been so happy than in that moment. Until I found out that in Utah they
send babies home with bili light blankets, so we could have avoided all that
nonsense.
That whole week is now an awful
blur. I delivered on Tuesday night, I was discharged from the hospital around 7
PM on Thursday. The hospital let me spend the night Thursday night so that I
could stay by Emmett. But they discharged me while I was feeding Emmett and so
when I got back to my room and asked for some ibuprofen because my stitches
were bothering me, they wouldn’t give me any since I had been discharged. For
freaking ibuprofen. I was so annoyed. They really treated me like crap once the
baby came out of me. Then, on Friday, they told me I had to leave. It was
probably a good thing since I couldn’t get any sleep on that stupid hospital
bed. But I was devastated to have to leave Emmett. Every time we left, I would
be bawling. One night when we were leaving, we ran into one of the other OBGYNs
I had seen. She saw me crying and was immediately alarmed, thinking something
had maybe happened to Emmett. I was crying so hard, she thought my baby had
died. That’s how emotional I was. We would go home after the 9 PM feeding to
sleep and then come back to the hospital for the 6 AM feeding. We stayed at the
hospital from around 6 AM to 10 PM every day—only leaving to go get food (and
that’s because they wouldn’t let us eat in the NICU. We tried all these new
restaurants with my parents, but I probably shouldn’t have been out in public.
Anytime I even thought about Emmett, I started bawling. I had all my hospital
bracelets on so that I could be let in to the NICU. So, strangers probably
thought I was out on a break from the mental hospital or out of rehab, cause I
was a hot mess. And I couldn’t really enjoy the good restaurants, because I was
so anxious to get back to my baby. It was a really hard week for me. I lost 30
pounds that week. And I got my first gray hairs.
While I wouldn't wish for anyone's baby to ever have to stay in the NICU, there were some silver linings that came with it. I was able to get some sleep at home and recover from labor before we brought him home. I could fully attribute all of my exhaustion to Emmett and not on the combination of labor and him. We also feel lucky that he has never had a problem taking a bottle because he had one from day one. Although, he has recently started preferring the bottle to breastfeeding, so that's kind of a bummer. We lasted 3 months with no nipple confusion though! The staff at the NICU got him on a good 3 hour feeding schedule, so I didn't have to worry about that either. I also feel like the noisy monitors in the NICU got him used to hearing sirens and loud engines on our street all night long.
But the absolute best thing about the NICU was seeing him monitored by professionals. I am an anxiety-ridden person and having a child has shot my anxiety through the roof. I'm always worried if he is breathing. But, it was helpful to be able to see him making his weird noises in the NICU and seeing that his oxygen levels were perfectly fine. It made those first few days at home much less stressful. If we hadn't seen what was normal behavior while under the supervision of doctors, I probably would have called the pediatrician every hour.
Billy had a two week break between his internal medicine rotation and his OBGYN rotation. This break started on July 29th, and Emmett was born on August 1st. I had been really worried about Billy not getting time off after the delivery. He would be in OB when I was due, so I figured they would be understanding and give him some time off, but we couldn't be sure until he started the rotation and asked the attending doctor. We have friends who were lucky to get a weekend off for the birth of a child while in med school. And the most we had ever heard of was 1 week off. I don't know how I would have managed with Billy going back to work before Emmett was even home from the hospital. And it was so nice to have an extra week all together at home. So, it worked out perfectly that we had Emmett at the beginning of his two week break. It was a scary decision, but it worked out for the best.
We decided we wanted Emmett to be
circumcised. Emmett is going to hate me for telling this whole story on the
internet, but he can’t talk yet, so sucks for him. The OBGYN on call on the day
that we took him home came in to tell us a little bit about the procedure. She
mentioned that she would send us out of the room for it. Billy had witnessed
his nephew Jet’s circumcision, and so I thought it was a normal thing for
parents to witness. I mentioned to her that I would actually prefer to be there
for it. I knew it would be hard to watch, but I wanted to go through it with
him and be able to comfort him. She freaked out on me and said “You shouldn’t
want to watch that”. And then proceeded to explain to me that good parents don’t
want to see their children go through something like that. I was in such an
emotional and fragile state that I started bawling. I tried to hide my tears
from her, but she kept pushing the subject. She asked me “What do you think I’m
gonna do to him?” like that was going to reassure me. I didn’t think she was
going to do anything weird to him, but after she said that, I did! I was so mad
at her. All she had to say was that she didn’t allow parents in there when she
operated and I would have been fine with that.
Anyway, we went to lunch so she
could do whatever she was going to do to Emmett. And I got a phone call from
her that she didn’t feel comfortable operating because she thought his penis
was too small. She was worried about damaging it. This doctor is definitely on
my shit list. First, she makes me feel like a horrible parent and makes me cry.
And then she insults my son’s perfectly normal sized penis! She said that we
would need to ask our pediatrician to do the circumcision or have him find a
pediatric urologist to do the procedure. Our pediatrician wouldn’t do it just
because he doesn’t do circumcisions, but he said that Emmett has a perfectly
normal sized penis and he doesn’t see why we would need a specialist. So, we
try calling all over the city to try and find a pediatric urologist. Turns out,
they are very rare. And none of the hospitals would let us schedule the
procedure since we hadn’t delivered there.
So, finally, about 9 days after
Emmett was born, I texted the OB who delivered Emmett. I asked him if he had
any suggestions. He had no idea that the other doctor who I hate hadn’t even done
the circumcision. He told me to bring Emmett to his office that day and he
would take a look at it. And he also mentioned that he didn’t remember Emmett’s
penis being too small when he delivered him. So, an hour later, Billy and
Emmett and I were in his office. He kept reassuring me that Emmett’s penis was
a perfectly normal size. He said he’d just do it right then and there and we
could watch. They strapped him to the little board and Billy dipped his finger
into sugar water to give to Emmett. The sugar water calmed him right down. He
only cried when they gave him an injection with the anesthetic. There was a
kind of scary moment when the clamp he was using broke and so he sent a med
student to run and get a new one. He was acting really calm, but he started
sweating as we were waiting. The med student was taking too long and he didn’t
want to cut off the circulation for too long, so he decided to just start
cutting even though the clamp wouldn’t close all the way. It was the grossest
thing I’ve ever seen. He got the excess skin stuck on his glove and kept trying
to fling it away and I dry heaved. It looked like a piece of lunch meat stuck
to his hand. But he did a great job and it looks beautiful. Our pediatrician
even commented on what a wonderful job he had done. Sorry, is that a weird
thing to brag about? I will complain that our OB didn’t warn us about having to
pull it back everyday so it wouldn’t start to heal up again. So, we had to yank
on it to pull it apart again. Penises are so weird.
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