Hospital Day 1

After Cora was born, Jamey's immediate job was to notify the family. In true introvert style for the 2010s, Jamey used text messages. There were two flaws with this approach. The first is my sister was not programmed into his phone and he forgot to tell my parents to send her the text. The second is that his mother is the same woman who once washed my cell phone in the sink when it got dirty. She thought the text was trying to sell her something and hit buttons till it went away. When my tech savvy niece got a hold of Juju's phone, she found about 100 text messages that had been treated to the "go away" approach. Luckily, his family was all at church together and they passed along the news.

Cora was so exhausted she slept through having her hair washed once we got to the room.

Our room at the hospital was fascinating. By that, I mean it has entertainment built in for the baby. Simply release the brakes on the bassinet and the baby will fly across the room. Apparently our room connects the old hospital to the new wing. Some construction genius was off on the measurements so they sloped our room to connect the two wings. It was enough of a slope to be visible to the naked eye.

Our first visitors were my parents and Ruby. Ruby was extremely excited yet cautious of the baby. I didn't discourage it. A toddler being scared of the baby is not all a bad thing. Mom and Dad brought a huge box of coffee from Starbucks (maybe a half gallon) and a basket of snacks.

Once they left, Jamey's family started showing up and showing up and showing up. The room turned into a party. Luckily, my easy labor meant I was fine with all the activity. The baby slept happily as she was passed from person to person. Oh and that large amount of coffee? We polished it off!

Aunt Karen dropped by and walked into the chaos. She left and Jamey's family slowly trickled out. Once they left, my sister showed up which was a huge surprise. Her and her children had jumped into the car upon hearing the news and drove 2 hours to visit. I was impressed with how much all the nieces and nephews oohed and ahhed over the baby. I don't remember really getting into babies when I was a kid. My mom and dad showed back up with Ruby and the Griner posse headed out.

Yvonne and Evan were our final visitors of the evening. Like angels, they arrived with Brio's takeout and a nice bottle of wine. Oh and what's that for dessert? That's right. A double doozie. Woo hoo!

After all our visitation was over, the nurse walked in for a final check of the evening. She mentioned that a Code Brown had been called for critical care unit and she would have to ask security what the story was. Seeing our confusion, she told us a code brown meant a fight. Later that evening Jamey and heard a Code Brown for Labor and Delivery. Jamey grabbed a camera and went downstairs. I yelled after him that he could probably just watch and episode of Maury Povich and get a similar story if he wanted but I don't think he heard me. Jamey missed the fight. After that, we settled in for the evening. Jamey and I shared the twin size hospital bed in part because the "dad" recliner would roll across the room if he tried to use it.

Through all this Cora slept and ate being basically a perfect newborn. I kept her in the room because I was concerned she would be taken away the next morning for the jaundice light like Ruby had been. I have O+ blood and both Ruby and Cora have A+ so it makes her a high risk for jaundice like Ruby had experienced. All in all the night nurses and Jamey's snoring woke me up more than she did. Maybe I would send them to the nursery on Day 2 instead of the baby.

Tomorrow's post - On Day 2 we get less popular and learn that Alabama's birth certificate form is a little depressing