(continued...)
kris shot out that baby she'd been carrying around (for the last 17 months), the hospital wheeled her over from the delivery room to our post-labor room. this room, in which we would spend the next 48 hours, had a fridge, a bathroom, a couple beds, a DVD player, and a big, flat-screen TV that was bigger and better than our own TV in our house. it was a decent little set-up for the kid's first two days of post-vagina living, but nobody got much sleep.
alayna, upon bursting out of her flesh-walled prison, weighed about 6 lbs. 1 oz. and measured approximately 19 inches in length. for those of you who are as oblivious to the knowings of babyhood as myself, that's not quite dangerously small, but its definitely underweight.
being underweight isn't necessarily bad, i guess, but it does bring about some small problems. problem #1: low blood sugar. or high blood sugar. i forget which one it is, but its something to do with her blood sugar levels. one of those two. anyway, she had to have a series of blood samples taken during her first 12 hours out, which meant kris had to breastfeed more frequently and, as a result, lost a crap-ton of sleep in the process. and, as a result of her losing sleep, yours truly didn't sleep much either. this sucked.
problem #2: jaundice. i'm not sure what this condition is, really, but i'm pretty sure it has something to do with pirates. or maybe that's scurvy. i'm not sure. what i do know is that jaundice turns the skin yellow and has something to do with her liver. i guess most babies have some level of jaundice when they're born, but underweight babies are more susceptible to it. and, a sure-fire way to treat this condition is to stick the baby out in the sun and let the UV rays cook the jaundice out of her. or so i'm told (i'm not a doctor).
anyway, back to the tale... we spent about 48 hours in the post-delivery hospital ward. we had to attend some boring, pointless discharge class on how to take bathe your baby, how to hold your baby, etc... boring rubbish, and i was the only dude in a room full of newborn-wielding moms so it was pretty awkward as well. we also had a bunch of old ladies man-handle kristina's titties on a regular basis and show her how to 'appropriately breastfeed' the baby (note: if you ever want to be really creeped out, knock a girl up and stick around for the "lactation specialists...). then, finally, on wednesday, they let us take the kid home... which ruled.
hospitals are great and all, i guess, but after awhile you get sick of old ladies bossing you around and the constant smell of disinfectant and rubber. i also hate hospital food and the clammy feeling you get from the air conditioners. anyway, we brought alayna home on wednesday and introduced her to fezzig, who was not nearly as cordial as we would've hoped (though we kinda expected that from the get-go).
...and there you have it. baby-birthin', hough style. keep a weather eye out for more updates and pictures to start popping up on here. if you guys need me, i'll be elbow-deep in baby shit.
stay outta trouble...
- brian
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