After four days in the hospital, Chris and I were discharged on Sunday evening and made our way home with a newborn (ahhhh!). We had our sweet sweet Toyota Sienna (I will never understand the hate towards mini-vans), and little Rosemary slept the whole way home. I liked the below photo because she looks so tiny in our den!
My brother and sister-in-law had surprised us by decorating our lawn with a cute little sign and mailbox balloons, which I thought were so cute!
Even though I was still in a lot of pain from my c-section, I really wanted photos from our first day home. Plus, the azaleas in our front yard were so beautiful, so I thought it would be a really pretty memory. We live on a bit of a hill, so by the time the photos were done, it was quite a struggle to get back up to the house – I had to hold on to my dad’s arm to make sure I didn’t fall!
At the time, I felt like pushing myself was fine because I had been sent home with a prescription for pain killers and I knew movement was good for recovery. We decided to eat dinner and then go to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. By the time we got to the pharmacy, it was about 9PM…and we learned that our doctor had not signed the prescription, so the pharmacy could not fill it.
We called the doctor’s office and spoke to a nurse, who informed us that we would have to wait until the morning since electronic signatures are not permitted for pain killers. At first, I thought “I can do this! I am recovering, and I am strong!” But then, a couple hours later, agony hit. A mixture of walking around for photos and feeding a newborn baby had really pushed me beyond my limits of pain tolerance.
Chris called the doctor’s office again and finally got to speak to the on-call doctor. It was about 1AM at this point, but the doctor said that if he could drive back down to the hospital, he could get a physical signature for the prescription. We live about 30 minutes away from the hospital, but Chris didn’t even hesitate. Fortunately, my mom was staying with us that night because I wasn’t really in a place to care for a newborn. As a side note, it’s kind of scary post-c-section to realize that in an emergency situation, you might not be able to react quickly enough to save a choking child….
When Chris returned home, it was nearly 4AM. After he drove to the hospital, he realized that the closest 24-hour pharmacy was almost an hour away from our house…in the other direction from the hospital. But again, he didn’t hesitate to drive there. After a few days of caring for me and Rosemary in the hospital, he was willing to compromise a night of sleep to make sure I wasn’t in pain! I’m so grateful for his compassion and selflessness – it was a hard first night home, but I’ll always remember how sweet he was!
And now for the photos from Rosemary’s first evening home!
