Life in the Hospital & Beautiful, Helpful People

I'm not going to lie, it was no fun living in the hospital. I was a patient from Monday, the 27th - Thursday the 29th and a resident while Lily was still a patient through the 31st with only two short trips out of the hospital for around an hour each. It was rough to be a patient, and even rougher to be discharged and have Lily still there.

As a patient there were constantly people coming in to check on or talk to us. I was really amazed at all of the different representatives that had to visit us at some point. It was quite funny to have someone come in to check my vitals only to have my nurse come in a half hour later and do the same thing. There were representatives of all sorts of hospital groups and patient relations. The most humorous was the anesthesiologist (or probably a resident) who came in while I was in labor to make sure my "airway wasn't compromised" in case they were needed. He stood no closer than three feet from the bed, never touched me, and had me open my mouth and stick out my tongue.

Then there was the hospital food. It is shocking how little healthy food is available in the hospital. I did get three meals a day while I was there, but they were astoundingly heavy and not at all what I was in the mood for at any point in time. There were biscuits and gravy, two lunches of fried chicken, and something called beef and broccoli that looked disgusting. The cafeteria wasn't much better. The options there were mostly pizza, burgers, etc. Luckily we had some friends bring in Panera and Josh was able to go out and get us some healthier options.

It was truly the most exhausting and frustrating five days of my life. There were, however, some amazingly beautiful people that made things as good as they could be given the situation. I had an amazing birth team and all of the nurses that took care of me in my postpartum room were fantastic. They were great at being compassionate to our specific situation and truly made me feel like they cared about us. The NICU nurses and doctors (with the exception of one "old school" nurse) taking care of Lily were also fantastic. They did everything they could to accommodate us and try to do what was best for everyone involved. Even the lactation consultants, although a bit pushy at times, were amazing in advocating for us to get a sleep room once I was discharged and Lily was still in the hospital. All in all we were very blessed to have such beautiful, helpful people taking care of us all. Still, it is very nice to be home!