Oakland Children's Hospital...The Next Step

Just as I was trying to get into the shower the next morning, Aaron comes into the room to tell me that they are coming to get Matthew so if I wanted to see him before he goes, I need to go up there. Guess no shower!

We went to the NICU and the nurse (whom I did not like…) kindly agreed to let me hold him until they came for him. When they came with the transport bed it was crazy, that’s the kind of things you see on Grey’s Anatomy, not what happens to me.  The nurse from Children’s was very kind and helpful, telling us what would happen next.  Then we kissed our baby and off he went.

On our way back to the room we stopped by the nurses station to find out how soon they could discharge me, the sooner the better. They told us they would send a doctor by as soon as possible. Thankfully, about 15-20 minutes later, a very Berkely doctor stopped by to check me out and deemed me suitable for discharge. We packed up and headed for Children’s Hospital…less than 12 hours after delivery. Oy.

We spent that whole day after he was born, with him, in the waiting room, with the social worker, meeting nurses (Kathy, she was FANTASTIC!), meeting doctors (they were 12 years old…), meeting anesthesiologist (he thought I looked GREAT. He was being kind.), meeting the surgeon, on and on. I basically recovered from childbirth in the waiting room at Children’s Hospital.

After a very long day we headed home, they were pretty sure they would do surgery the next morning but nothing concrete. The kids were excited to see us, though it’s all a blur. I mostly remember going upstairs, taking a shower, getting into bed and JUST as I was falling asleep the phone rang and it was the hospital. Surgery would be at 9:00am so we needed to be there at 8:30am. The plan was for Aaron and Marcie to take the kids to the Home Depot kids clinic and then the zoo, while mom and I went to the hospital. We were trying to keep as many things “normal” for the older three inspite of all the change.