[Niamh ૐ]

Sorry I forgot to update you guys!!
Rhiannon Caoimhe Siobhan was born January 20, 2010, she weighed 8lbs 13oz, and she was 20.5 inches long.

Here's my birth story: pregnant_niamh: Rhiannon is HERE!

And here's a pic of Rain in her first cloth diaper :

She's BEAUTIFUL!!!

I had a feeling you had her since you didn't respond to my call-out post!!

Congrats sweetie. I'll have to read your birth story in a little bit!!

ETA: Beautiful story, but so sorry about all the troubles you had. That's got to be so frustrating.

[benandali]

Congrats! She's beautiful! I'm so sorry about all that crap you went through. I'm a nurse and we have policies and all but that story pissed me off. HOW DARE they make you supplement when she was making enough wet and dirty diapers?? HOW DARE THEY??!!! Ugh, that had to be so infuriating for you. Bless your heart. And yeah, 20cc is almost one whole oz....to supplement w/ an ounce when the baby already nurses for like 10 or 15min?? I'm so sorry. Of course they knew they could get you to cave if they threatened w/ making you stay another night. In the future, you can totally call patient services/relations and they take care of stuff like that and nip it in the bud!

But glad you are finally home and doing well!

The doctor's did that with my son. He was in the NICU for high bili's. The doctor told me that I had to breastfeed and that if I didn't he had to stay in the NICU. That totally freaked me out and no matter how hard I tried, he would not latch. I had LCs, nurses, and all that tell me I was doing everything that i was supposed to do, and I was in tears because I was afraid the doctor was going to keep him. I finally just told the nurses that he wouldn't do it and I had to formula feed him (he was losing a lot of weight), and he needed to be fed.

Turned out that he had a tongue tie, and there was nothing that I could do about that. After some education, we could have had it clipped, but nobody even talked to me about that - not even the pediatrician!!

What is with all the threats these days that doctor's/nurses are doing to their patients to freak them out?

I remember with my daughter, I had my mind set and that was going to be it. Nobody was going to tell me any different.

[benandali]

Yeah I don't know what's up w/ that. At my hospital thankfully I rarely see that...but we are very family centered care and try to included the family and the families preferences and ways of doing things before forcing people to do stuff! And as a nurse I feel like I gotta advocate for my pts if the docs are doing something I know the family is not comfortable with. I know lots of nurses who are like that but then unfortunately there are the ones that think that since it's written in some book that's the way it's gotta be!

[Niamh ૐ]

Thanks guys!

Ugh, yeah the formula thing REALLY ticked us off! I mean, Seamus didn't *once* get a drop of formula for the entire first year of his life and I was always really proud of that (not that I have anything against ff or anything, just that I was so determined to breastfeed him and I've always been proud of the fact that he never had any formula for his first full year of his life)... so I was really disappointed that we couldn't say that with Rain. But it ticked us off even more that there was no real reason she had to have it AND that they basically threatened us to give it to her.

The doctor also gave us a really hard time for not getting the Hep B vaccine for her. We're not *against* it per se... we just wanted to do our own research on it before consenting. We're not one of those anti-vax people or anything... but we do like to do our own research on things before just blindly saying "ok" to everything the doctor says, ya know? Well the doctor's "medical opinion" was that it was "totally safe" and that she got it for her kid. Well first, no vaccine (or medication, or anything like that) is "totally safe". There are always risks. And second, just because you gave it to your kid doesn't mean it's safe... nor is that a medical reason to try and convince someone to get it.

Oh! And when we finally were getting discharged, they gave us her shot record and guess what was the FIRST (and only) thing written down, with a time stamp and a nurse's signature? The Hep B vaccine!!! We about flipped a lid. We asked the nurse who was discharging us why the heck that was on there when we expressly declined the vaccine. He was shocked (he better be! Because if she got that vaccine, the hospital would be hearing from our lawyer!), and went to go check the official paperwork. She didn't get the vaccine. Apparently what happened was some dumb nurse was getting the vax card ready for us, saw that it was blank and just *ASSUMED* that she had gotten the vaccine and it was just not written down, so they wrote that she had gotten it! Can you believe that?! I mean, why would you just assume a patient got a vaccine and write it down on paperwork without even making sure that she actually GOT that vaccine?! I mean, I understand that it's not the norm to have a patient decline it, but you ALWAYS check beforehand before just assuming something, ya know? Ugh.

On the plus side though, our placenta was still good! Thank the gods... and Gwyddion encapsulated it last night in pill form.

Awesome. I would totally call and complain about your hospital experience and if you decide to have another child, go somewhere else? They seem so inept there!!

On the plus side though, babe, she's a gorgeous baby and you and hubby should be VERY proud. You're making it harder and harder for me to say no to #3.

[Niamh ૐ]

Aww With as cute as Caleb and Zoe are, I don't blame you for having a hard time saying no to number 3!

Unfortunately, we're a military family... so our options are pretty limited when it comes to where we receive our care. We had a lot of issues with the hospital we had Seamus at too. Though most of my issues there had to do with prenatal care and the actual birth experience itself. We didn't have as many after-birth issues there as we did here (though our prenatal and birth experience was MUCH better this time). We had Seamus at an Army hospital, and Rhiannon at a Naval hospital.

Oh yeah, and I can't wait to change pediatricians. :-/ We get limited choices there too. She was automatically assigned to us, but we're going to try and change pediatricians. We're not happy with her at all. She kept scolding me every time she caught me bedsharing with Rain. :-/ I'm not a huge co-sleeping kind of person, but for that newborn stage, it's just easier to breastfeed that way. I did the same with Seamus. Once he started sleeping through the night, he stayed in his crib, and we plan to do the same with Rain. But yeah, I was getting annoyed that she kept scolding me for that. BUT! We're going to try and find someone else... someone who's parenting ideals are a little more in tune with our's.

On a charting note... I haven't been charting yet (though I started a new chart, beginning on the day I gave birth). No temping or anything, but I'm planning to start temping soon. I'm using LAM right now (we are not still supplementing, btw... we stopped doing that before they discharged us), but I still wanted to monitor my temps and CM... just in case. Haven't been checking my CM as I'm waiting until I stop spotting. Temping will be a little difficult since I'm waking up at night to take care of the baby. I'm thinking that I will take my temp when she wakes up for the first time for a diaper change and feeding at night instead of in the morning. This way I have had a few hours of uninterrupted sleep before taking it... as after we bring her into our bed for the rest of the night, I'll be occasionally woken up by her to feed and whatnot... so my temp in the morning may not be as accurate as my temp in the middle of the night. Does that make sense? lol.

I'm sure too, that I'll have nights where I'll have to toss out the temp altogether... as we all know what it's like to have a newborn, lol. But I still do want to monitor my temps and CM... even before I fully start using FAM. It's kind of a comfort thing.

[benandali]

OHHHH....it's a naval hospital...sadly that does explain it a bit better for me. I just couldn't fathom that kind of care it ANY of the hospitals in my area. that's unfortunate but at least she's here, safe and sound!! lol goodness.

Thanks for the compliment.

I didn't start charting after Zoe until like 6 weeks - after I knew I had completely stopped bleeding. With both kids I pretty much had a period for a straight 6 weeks. Very draining, very tiring and on top of that waking up with a newborn, I was a pretty tired girl. I'm sure I was anemic for sure.

I personally wouldn't worry about charting your temps just yet. Just focus on your CM right now - for that very reason. unless you know you're going to have a good 3 hours between feedings and at this point, you won't really know that just yet.

But here again, that's just me

[2Corinthians10:4]

She's gorgeous!!! Congrats!