The Hagberg Hoopla: March 2011

I did have a great experience at the hospital and felt very well taken care of, but I couldn't stay there forever and Jeff was anxious to get home. We had the option of staying at the hospital one more day but we made the decision to go home.

Clark in his "going home outfit"

All tuckered out :)

I love his laid back look here

Jeff's mom Michele had hung a banner to welcome Clark home on our mirror. I cried.

Clark's first time in his crib. So tiny!

First time at home as a family, well minus Rupert :( He was still at the kennel, it was weird to be home without his friendly face!

So when we were at the hospital Clark didn't cry that much. In fact, they asked us which one of us was laid back--of course we both said me--because Clark was SO laid back! The night we got home from the hospital Clark cried for hours. We didn't know what to do! It was the middle of the night. We had fed him "20 CC's" which is more than what they told us to feed him at the hospital, his diaper was clean, we did everything we knew what to do! We started to get worried that we overfed him. The thought crossed our minds that he could be hungry, especially since my body was giving us clues that it was time to feed the baby, but we quickly changed our minds to the thought that we must have given him too much. Jeff decided to call the pediatrician for advice. She heard him screaming in the background and asked Jeff if he was hungry. He said that he couldn't be, that we fed him "20 CC's!" She said, "Sir, that's an ounce. He can eat around 3 ounces every 2 hours." Poor kid was starving!! Jeff hung up the phone and we fed our child. He stopped crying and went to sleep. Oh wow, is it that obvious that we are new parents? We were both embarrassed but had a good laugh.

The first week at home was kind of a blur. We were instantly in love with Clark, but we were clearly newbies and were trying to figure out our kiddo. I was also still very drugged up, we were sleep deprived, and I think becoming an instant dad when Jeff had hardly even ever held an infant before was a bit of a shock and a major adjustment for him (even though he was doing a fabulous job), not to mention every time we tried to breastfeed, Clark screamed at the top of his lungs which was a little stressful for all of us. Everyone kept saying to relax because Clark can tell when I'm tense, but it was hard to relax when he was screaming that hard. We went to the point of lighting candles, turning the lights down, putting a heating pad on my back, rocking, closing my eyes, and blaring Enya on my noise-canceling headphones to relax while he screamed. That didn't even do the trick! We decided to go to another lactation specialist.

Clark right before the appointment

We had an appointment with the lactation specialist and an appointment to get Clark circumsized within an hour of each other...on a Monday. Most people know that Mondays are crazy at doctors offices because everyone has been waiting all weekend to get in. They were 1/2 hour behind for our first appointment so Jeff started getting anxious and worried that we were going to miss our next appointment and have to pay for it or at least have a hassle of having to reschedule and come back.

We finally got in there and started with the lactation lady. She wanted to weigh him and check him over, so she told us to take off all his clothes and wrap him in our blanket. Blanket? What blanket? we were supposed to bring a blanket? She looked at us like we were bad parents and were going to freeze our poor newborn in the middle of the winter with no clothes on and no blanket! Note to self: bring blanket next time.

We started to try breastfeeding so she could observe us. Clark was screaming, per usual, and we were trying to talk to her and work with Clark and the pediatrician came in to tell us about the circumcision. The lactation lady slipped out of the room after our unsuccessful attempt and the pediatrician took over. She was talking a mile a minute in a really excited tone and I couldn't understand anything she was talking about. I suddenly felt like I didn't know a thing about the male anatomy and it all became very complicated. She even drew a picture to explain where things were. I still felt clueless and was still in a haze from the pain meds and lack of sleep and suddenly panicked that this was all so rushed and this lady who I couldn't understand and seemed to have 10 too many cups of coffee that day was the one that was going to be slicing my baby boy. I could feel tears coming. She wisked him away without time to have a second thought about it. As soon as they left and we had an empty room, Jeff said, "should we pump?" I was totally in another zone and said "sure." So Jeff got the parts out, I tried to use my discreet nursing tank top and nursing bra and couldn't even figure that out, so whipped them both off and started to pump.

All of a sudden my face felt red and I couldn't believe what we were doing! Here I am topless in the pediticians office pumping and I couldn't imagine if someone walked in and I was in that state. I told Jeff I would totally be embarrassed if someone walked in and he said "no it's good, we're multitasking!" Then Jeff looked like he had a realization. He said, "wait, is that lacation lady coming back?" I said, "yes!" he said, "oh we shouldn't be pumping!" I said "exactly!" so he pulled off the pumping gear and milk is flying and I'm frantically trying to put my clothes back on before someone comes back in the room. We started laughing hysterically and we needed that! We both couldn't believe what we were just doing. I took a big drink of water and started laughing again and snorted it out my nose all over me and the floor.

Moments later, the Pediatrician came back in with Clark! He had his hands behind his head and had a "cigar"--a rolled up paper towel dipped in sugar water--sticking out of his mouth. She told us he slept through the procedure! I couldn't believe it! I guess the sugar water cigar really worked! She said she put a diaper on loosely and she was going to check on him again in a few minutes. I held Clark for about a minute before he pooped all over. I mean all over. I said, "Jeff, it's really warm on my lap right now." He got up and looked and there was poop all over Clark, me, the bench I was sitting on, the floor...everywhere. He started grabbing paper towels and made a dam with them and started cleaning everything up. Just then, the lactation lady came back. Jeff said, "oh we can't really do that right now,"and she said, "oh, ok." Then the pediatrician came back in and was explaining how to care for Clark's owie while the lactation lady was talking to me at the same time. I was half listening to both of them and not really listening to either of them as a result.

Suddenly they both left, I didn't know how to care for Clark and didn't have any help with breastfeeding. I couldn't believe Jeff would send her away when I really needed her help! I started crying. He explained he wasn't trying to send her away, just that the diaper situation needed to be taken care of first! It was a sad car ride back home. We drove into the garage and Jeff had set up a tennis ball for me in the garage so I have a target to hit (Not the best at spacial awareness) so he hit the tennis ball slowly, then turned his head and kept driving right into the wall! And I was laughing hysterically again. I think he was a little worn out from the experience...we all were. I began to realize I was feeling very unstable--laughing hard one minute, bawling the next...at least there were laughs among the tears!

More to come on the adventures of the Hagberg family :)

I follow a few friends blogs and I'm particularly impressed with my friends who have small children who blog often! It's inspiring me because I have been wanting to blog a bunch about Clark and I just don't feel like I have the time, but I need to make time because the reason I started this blog in the first place was to document life. I don't have the best memory and I just really love going back and seeing pictures and reading about memories, so I really want to document my little guy's first moments!

First of all, back to the birth of Clark, I had an AWESOME experience at Abbott, where we delivered. We had wonderful nurses and I felt well taken care of, and my doctor, Dr. Gibeau, was fabulous. I would recommend Women's Health Consultants and Abbott to anyone! We were blessed with a huge room for my recovery which made a big difference in our experience, too. A friend of ours who is a nurse there said that they try to give the bigger rooms to the moms recovering from a C-section because they stay longer, so that was awesome. I even had great food! I guess I just didn't expect to love my experience as much as I did, which makes it easy to think about doing this again :) Don't worry, not RIGHT away!

It was so fun having our parents get to meet their grandson for the first time at the hospital. I wish I wasn't in such a fog and could remember it all a little better, I do remember my eyes were shutting the whole time they were there! All that really mattered was that they got to meet him, though. What a feeling!

Our parents are such a huge part of our lives and we are so excited for them to be a significant part of Clark's life as his grandparents. Each one of them is so unique and brings so many good qualities that I know Clark will appreciate and learn from, as Jeff and I have. What a special thing it is to have loving grandparents, we feel so blessed and are so happy for Clark.

Jeff was so helpful in the hospital. I had a hard time doing much at first because of the C-section, so Jeff was helping me get up to go to the bathroom, making sure I ordered my meals on time, keeping double track of my pill schedule with the nurses to make sure I didn't have pain, and of course, taking care of Clark! Here is Jeff changing his first diaper :) I love this picture.

We had all this lead up with Rupert (our other baby) and making sure he was prepared for the baby to join him in the house...we even took a 6 week course on how to introduce your dog to the baby! We had a plan to have Rupert be taken care of at home by friends and family while we were in the hospital for the short stay so he would be in his own environment and comfortable before the big change. That was the plan before we had the C-section and the short stay in the hospital quickly turned into a long stay. We couldn't have someone let him out 4 times a day for several days, so we decided to send Rupert away to "sleep away camp," the breeders where he came from.

I cried when that decision was made because he was going to be there for a week after we got home too so I wouldn't see him for pretty much 2 weeks! But it was for the best. So Jeff had to go home from the hospital (already exhausted himself from everything), pick up Rupert and drive him to the kennel which is an hour away from our house and drive all the way back home. It was all later in the evening so he wasn't going to be able to come back to the hospital until the next day.

I realized how much Jeff had been doing and how supportive he had been when I had the thought of him not being there for the evening. I almost panicked. How would I do this on my own? I simply couldn't ask the nurses to do everything Jeff was doing because they would be in my room constantly and they have other patients!

It was an aweful night, I have to say. At one point, I tried to get out of bed on my own because Clark was crying. I had to change his diaper (my first one since we had him!) and I couldn't figure out how to put his outfit back on (hadn't done that yet either). Oh no, suddenly I had to go to the bathroom and Clark was crying and he was cold and he was pretty much naked, not to mention I was very slow moving still from my incision and probably from being drugged and tired, so just the simple act of going to the bathroom was an event. Before I had an emotional breakdown, I called the nurse and had her hold him while I went to the bathroom so he wouldn't cry! She looked at me like I was crazy, but I didn't care...I probably was a little at that point.

After she left I got my phone and called Jeff sobbing and said through tears, "I can't do this without you! Please come back?" He said he couldn't keep his eyes open to drive back to the hospital and that everything would be ok. I felt so helpless, so tired, so weak and yet filled with joy to realize how good I do have it. The whole 'you don't realize what you have until it's gone' thing, well I was definitely realizing and I missed it...I missed him. It was a bitter-sweet moment that I probably won't forget.

And you can imagine how excited I was to see this face again :) Oh, did I mention he came back to the hospital at 5 am so he could be with me again as soon as possible? What a guy!

Man, I love those men :)

And here is my Grandma, Bama, with Clark!

Something that was very special for Clark was meeting his great-grandma, "Great Bama." Great Bama has been waiting to add the "Great" to her name for quite sometime now, so was VERY excited for Clark's arrival, which was so fun!

Bama and my mom and I took a road trip this fall while I was pregnant with Clark so we talked about it a lot then, and she also came to MN for Christmas before I had Clark. She also helped host a shower for me, so it was SO fun having her be part of the lead up to Clark and for her to be so excited about him.

When Bama was in MN for Christmas, she unfortunately fell and broke her shoulder. We were so bummed about it for her because it meant surgery and therapy and recovery, but we were so happy to have her here in MN for a couple extra months, something that wouldn't have happened otherwise, and what timing! The birth of Clark! It was so special and meaningful for her to be there to meet him at the hospital and see him a few times before she left to go back to Michigan. He loves his Great Bama already! We are looking forward to her return in a few months to see a slightly older baby Clark :)

We also had our best friends Kate & Mike and Matt & Lindsey come visit us right after Clark was born which was so fun, but again, a bit of a blur for me! ;)