I was in the hospital on Tuesday Aug 11 and checked out on Friday. 3 nights for a C-section recovery. This post is about the first day at the hospital.

Tuesday was wonderful. I got out of my medicated haze by the time Xiola was returned to me in my room. My roommate had not moved in yet so we had the whole room to ourselves. I had an IV dripping pain medication so I experience no pain at all that day if I didn’t move. Wow! The C-section was so easy, I thought! No pain!

I had catheter in that I could not feel. I always wondered about the concept of a catheter…like won’t it hurt having something stick up you constantly? How would I pee? Do I have to pee into a tube? I thought I’d feel like peeing, then feel the release, like you know, how we all pee normally, only I’ll do it into a tube. But turns out, with a catheter, there isn’t even any desire to piss. The tube just takes the piss out automatically. At the end of the day, the nurse changes your bag of piss and you are like, how did all that get there? After months of having to pee 6 times an hour, it was glorious not having to leave the bed.

They also wrapped my calves with these foot massagers that inflated and deflated, like those things your doctor uses to check your blood pressure.

No pain. No piss. All day foot massage. This was awesome!

We didn’t do much at all that day. Pat and I just laid on my hospital bed all day and I was pretty much nursing all day. Every 3 hours, I would nurse Xiola, or whatever I could nurse. My milk had not “come in” yet. But it was essential to nurse because she was getting the liquid gold called colostrum and she was learning to latch. I remember being militant about checking to make sure that her mouth was latching on according to my textbooks – Babywise, Baby Whisperer, and What to Expect – all of which would become my biblical trio in the coming months (they deserve a whole other blog post).

Liz had gone by about 2 or 3pm and in the evening, our friends Mike and Vicki came by. Vicki was our official photographer who had the all-important responsibility of taking pictures and sending them out to family and close friends immediately since we had no internet connection at the hospital.

Pat wasn’t allowed to stay overnight at the hospital, unless we paid $900 a night for a private room which we were too cheap to pay for. Upon hindsight, maybe we should have just paid for it. It was just 3 nights and I ain’t gonna give birth more than twice (probably) in my life! We’ll do it the next time around. So his visiting hours were 7 or 8 am (I can’t remember) to 10 or 11pm. We were fortunate that our friends Teddi & Brian let him stay over at their apartment in the Upper West Side during the 3 nights we were at the hospital, a 10 min cab ride from St. Luke’s Roosevelt vs. a 30-40 min cab ride home in Park Slope. But it still sucked every time they made the announcement that all significant others had to leave.

After Pat left, the nurse asked me if I wanted Xiola to stay next to me all night or she’ll take her to the nursery and bring her to me every 3 hours for nursing. Prior to this, I had 2 different opinions from 2 moms – (1) of course you want your baby next to you all night, these are precious moments; and (2) of course you want the nurse to bring her to the nursery so you get some shut-eye because honey, you need as much sleep as you can get.

I chose initially to have Xiola stay next to me…until 2 minutes after the nurse left. Not that Xiola was being difficult or anything like that…I had ZERO mobility! I was laying next to Xiola’s bassinet but I could not reach over to pick her up because despite the infusion of pain medication, I had no use of my ab muscles at all. It was ridiculous. So I buzzed the nurse and Xiola went to the nursery at midnight while I slept and the nurse would bring her in promptly at 3am and 6am every night to nurse.

Upon hindsight, it was a wise thing to do. All the advice in any baby book or momma forum ring true – you want to sleep whenever your baby sleeps because ain’t nothing worse than a sleep deprived momma! When Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody’s happy. I don’t think I’d have slept as soundly if Xiola was breathing next to me. It’s just hard to in those early days, before you truly get to know your baby, to switch off.

I didn’t know what to expect of those middle of the night nursing sessions before I had a baby. I was apprehensive. I was one of those people who needed a minimum of 7 hours a night to function and I could sleep 9-10 hours uninterrupted easily. I never had to live with less than that amount of sleep for more than 2 days – either during exam or raving-in-the-club-till-dawn periods of my life. I braced myself for impact. I told myself that it will probably be the most difficult thing I’ll have to do but I’d work through it somehow.

Little did I know how easy it would be. Because waking up to the alarm of a hungry baby feels completely different from waking up to your alarm clock. There is no snooze button. There is no groggy desire for 2 more minutes, just 2 more minutes of sleep, dammit! When I am awakened by my baby’s cry, to this day, it’s like a shot of caffeine up my nose. I’m just UP and ready for her. It must be chemical, biological; there’s no other explanation for it.

Those mornings I had with Xiola on my breast at 3am, just her and I in the world before everyone else stirs, were moments of unspeakable pleasure (how many different ways can I describe the joy of motherhood on my blog? We’ll see!). I really wasn’t ready for that. I was ready for grumpiness, fatigue, depression, not this orgasm of life in my arms.