Birthday from Daddy’s Perspective Part 2.

Immediately after the births of Evan and Amelia, my life became a complete blur. I had absolutely no concept of time passing or even what time of day it was. I don’t even remember looking at a clock for at least a day or two. The account that follows is my recollection of those events as remembered almost three weeks after the fact. The one thing that I remember vividly is that I received zero sleep the first night and slightly more than that on the second night. Therefore, my state of mind at the time can be described as borderline delirium. I am being a little sarcastic but the accuracy of the following statements, although believed to be factual, cannot be independently verified. This is because my only witness was watching me in a drug-induced euphoria while suffering from severe anemia due to the loss of over a liter of blood during the surgery - that’s roughly three cans of coke, yum!!-. This confuses me because I read that a pregnant woman has excess blood in her uterus and it is normal for a woman to lose up to a liter of blood during a c-section. I also read that the excess blood in the uterus acts as a pseudo transfusion to offset the blood loss incurred during child birth. I know nobody cares but I feel compelled to cite my reference for this info. I read it on the World Anesthesia online magazine (http://www.nda.ox.ac.uk/wfsa/html/u09/u09_003.htm.) Apparently this was not the case with Jenni, because she was being monitored closely for a potential blood transfusion. I was scared for the first couple of days because she did not look well at all. Her face and lips were a ghostly white color as were her hands. Her pulse was twice the normal level and her blood pressure was extremely low. It was around 80/60 and normal is 120/80. They were waking her up every couple of hours to take her vitals but I will let her describe that to you in her post. In the end, she did not need a transfusion and now she has her color back and is doing much better.

Previously on “Birthday from Daddy’s Perspective” da dun..da dun …

“So I finally picked her up and we took them to the recovery room and they both received baths while they closed Jenni up.”

The following takes place between 9am and 10am……and on….. and on …..and is still ongoing. (if you have never seen the TV show 24, ignore this part.)

Evan Charles Harrop and Amelia Jeanne Harrop were born at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland at 9:04am and 9:05 am, respectively, on January 09, 2008. After their baths, the Navy Hospital Corpsman gave me a crash course in baby care 101. The first thing I noticed was Evan staring at me. The picture that you see was taken less than 30 minutes after he was born. He was very alert and attentive immediately. The Corpsman instructed me as she put a diaper on each one of them. I think they made a mistake and tried to put adult diapers on them because they were huge and the babies were literally falling out of their diapers. After a brief interlude, the Corpsman returned with preemie diapers that fit better but were still a little loose. The preemie diapers were 2 sizes smaller than the one’s that were pre-stocked in the bassinets so I guess our babies were well below the average birth weight for that hospital.
Their combined weight was slightly less than 10 pounds, and the larger diapers fit babies from 8-14 pounds. I was thinking that since they shared a womb for 37 weeks that they wouldn’t mind sharing a diaper, but I didn’t have to test this theory because the Corpsman brought smaller diapers. We brought diapers as well but they were the size in between the previously stated diapers so they were also too big. OK enough about diapers already! After the diaper situation was resolved, the Corpsman showed me how to swaddle the babies in receiving blankets. I’ve gotten better at this but they looked pretty ragged at first. (There was another Corpsman that worked the night shift that would come in every few hours to check their vitals. When he was finished, he would rap them tighter than a burrito, so we gave them the nickname baby burritos.) Next she pulled out two needles and gave one of the babies a shot (Note: I don’t remember which baby got the first shot, I think it was Evan but I am not sure. This is not due to the delirium or lack of sleep because it is still too early for that. It is due to the fact that I was still in a daze from the experience of being a dad for the first/second time.) After she administered the first shot, and before she secured the safety mechanism on the needle that helps avoid pointy little accidents, she dropped the needle. I gasped because it landed right near the foot of my 10 minute old child. Again, I don’t remember which child. But, I do remember that it was the baby that did not get the shot. I politely exclaimed, “please be careful around my babies!” although that is not what I was thinking. She said, “um... yeah… ok” or something like that. To her credit, she performed the shot on the remaining baby with the utmost care and concentration.

I don’t remember how long it took for them to finish closing Jenni up, but it seemed like a very long time. I am not sure, but I would estimate that it was close to an hour before she left the operating room. This is where my thoughts get a little jumbled. I started out in a recovery room and ended up in a family suite with Jenni and the babies. I don’t remember how or when I left the recovery room and went to the suite. I remember leaving a small suitcase and two pillows that we brought from home in the recovery room that ended up in the suite. I don’t know if I brought them myself or had help and I don’t remember who wheeled the babies into the suite. I also don’t remember if Jenni came to the recovery room or went straight to the suite. Maybe she can clarify this. Anyway, the setup at the hospital for new mothers and their babies is different than I have seen in the past. Some people would like this setup while others would not. Personally, I like the way it is setup. First of all, there is no nursery in the hospital. New mothers are given a private suite. It is the size of an average motel room, and it has a private bathroom. The babies stay in the room with the mother at all times, and they have electronic ankle bracelets that trigger alarms if they leave the maternity ward. These bracelets did not stay attached because both babies lost weight and the bracelets just slipped off of their ankles. Most of the medical personal did not care when I brought this up. The doctors and nurses could care less. I was on a military base so I felt comfortable that they were safe. I did keep mentioning it though and finally after several hours, a Corpsman put the bracelets back on. They slipped off again after a few hours so I gave up. The room also has a loveseat that is a foldout bed for daddy to sleep on. I use the words bed and sleep very loosely in this instance. It would make a decent bed if you are 4 feet tall, but if not it is kind of cramped. The foldout bed was about as long as the loveseat was wide. I was able to get a little more room by lying diagonal but I didn’t get much sleep anyway so the point is moot. It was more like a small amount of 20 to 30 minute powernaps. The first day was just me running around like a madman. I was trying to take care of Evan and Amelia while helping Jenni out as well because she could not get up. Every couple of hours I had to change them and help Jenni hold them to feed them. This usually became a two hour evolution to get the both of them changed, fed, and back to sleep. Then I would get a quick break and have to do it all over again. Morning, afternoon, and evening melded together because I was doing the same thing over and over.

The next day was more of the same. I had the same clothes on and I did not have the time or presence of mind to change or clean myself up. My shirt had baby puke smeared all over the shoulder, and I’m sure the doctors and nurses thought I was a mess. I wore this shirt for the rest of the day and finally the next morning I decided that I had to take the time and take care of my hygienic needs. The only items I took from home were a razor/shaving cream and toothbrush/toothpaste. No soap or shampoo. Not to worry though, there is a soap dispenser hanging in the bathroom filled with hospital grade antibacterial soap. If anyone has washed their hands in a hospital, you are probably cringing right now because you know that if the ancient Egyptians had access to this stuff, they would use it in their mummification process. This stuff completely gets rid of even the minutest traces of moisture on your skin. So I brush my teeth and shave and I take a styrofoam cup and fill it with the liquid desiccant that is hanging on the wall and use it to wash myself in the shower. Wow, what a difference a shower and a shave makes. I felt like a million bucks. I no longer felt or smelled like a homeless person and felt more comfortable talking to the doctors. This euphoria was short-lived however. Within minutes, I felt the skin tightening around my face and it started to burn. I found a tube of hand lotion in Jenni’s purse and I doused my face with it. This brought instant relief and an all new state of euphoria. Life was good but there was still one more problem. I had not eaten much of anything for quite a long time and it was catching up with me. So I politely excuse myself and say I am going to the Dunkin Donuts that is located inside the hospital to get a coffee. In addition to the coffee, I got a Sausage, egg, and cheese croissant that I inhaled in about ten seconds. Jenni could only eat crackers, so I did not want to bring it to the room and eat in front of her. I went back to the room to continue the changing/feeding ritual for several more hours.

One thing that made the whole experience even more difficult was all the interruptions. There was the nurse that had to check on Jenni every few hours and give her medicine and check her vitals. There were the OB doctors that also had to periodically check on her well-being. There were the pediatricians that had to check on the babies. Then there were also the Corpsmen that had to monitor the babies, and the cleaning personnel that emptied out the trash. The Corpsmen also had to empty the dirty laundry and the medical waste receptacles. As you can imagine, this amounted to a great deal of interruptions, and they all came at different times. I remember that a Corpsman came in every night at midnight to weigh the babies and check their temperature and blood pressure. Then they came back at 4:30 am to empty the laundry and medical waste. As I said earlier, the doctors were worried that Jenni would need a transfusion so they had to monitor her even closer. There was one instance at about 1:00 am when I had just fallen asleep after getting the babies to fall asleep and Jenni called my name. I got right up and was standing in front of her but I was only half awake and I could not comprehend what she was saying. I had the presence of mind to understand this fact though. At first I just stared at her and then I said “wait a minute, I can’t not understand what is going on; I need to wake up first.” It took a minute or two, but I came out of the fog and found out that Evan was crying and I picked him up and got him to go back to sleep. It is very weird, but I have a vivid memory of standing there in front of Jenni and not comprehending what is going on. I guess that’s what happens to the human body/mind from lack of sleep. My reaction time slowed down to minutes instead of milliseconds. I don’t think that I would have been able to safely drive a car at that point and I was thinking about that. I even mentioned to Jenni that I did not feel safe driving the babies home on the D.C. Beltway unless I got some sleep. By the third day Jenni was able to move around a little and actually pick up the babies. So I got enough rest to where I was able to drive home on the fourth day.









Evan and Amelia in their going home outfits.




Coming Soon ……. Our first days home from the hospital.