There's No Place Like Home

So after spending five days in the hospital, it all came down to a battle of the doctors, my doctor vs. Paytan's doctor to see which of the two of us would be allowed to go home first. The stipulations were that because Paytan was a month early and I had lost so much blood after surgery both of us had to stay in the hospital to be monitored, just in case (which side note has become my own person mantra like when packing the diaper bag, grocery shopping or anything else in life that I plan to do.)

So here we were, Paytan and I, waiting patiently to get the "OK" to head home and start own incredible journey together. I was surprisingly feeling a ton better after being bed ridden for three days and loosing half of my blood, so I was a little more than annoyed when Paytan's doctor came in, gave her to once over and said she was free to go. Me on the other hand, had to wait. It wasn't until three hours later that my doctor finally came in and said that if I felt up to it, I could go home but not before we all had our picture taken together.



First, look at how tin y Paytan is and yes she is still so cute! Second, if you can take your eyes off me and my glorious beauty in this picture there is some explanation that needs to be put forth. The reason that I am holding up a little pair of socks is because my doctor, Dr. Morishita, is absolutely in love with Paul Frank stuff particularly "Small Paul" as many of those items are for babies and little kids and with her being an OB it it rather fitting. Here is something that Paytan has that Dr. Morishita said she wished they had in "big people's size:"



After all of the photo-ops were complete, action was immediately taken to get Paytan and I ready to go home. Mom and Kris turned into a couple of pack mules because as you can imagine what it is like when you go on vacation for 5 days, Kris, Paytan, Mom and I all had a ton of stuff in the hospital room that needed to be organized, packed and taken out to the car. While everyone else was taking care of the packing business, I told them that there was one more thing that I wanted to do before we left the hospital and that was to take a bath. Not just any bath but a bath in the best jacuzzi bath tub ever! I mean think about the most relaxing bath you have ever taken and then picture the mommy bath that gave birth to that bath tub and that is what I was relaxing in, fitting analogy. It was so great to be able to take a bath after being bed ridden for three days and then only getting to take a shower the last two days due to stitches. This bath tub had jets in all the right places that went the complete length of my back but as I relaxed and stretched out in this enormous bath tub, I realized that there were strategically placed jets at my feet as well. I have never been more relaxed in my entire life, even more than the hour long massage I got as part of my pre-wedding prep. I stayed in the bath for about 30 minutes and I really didn't want to leave for a number of reasons. 1) I could finally take a piping hot bath, which wasn't allowed while pregnant. 2) I would have to go home and settle for my less than stellar bath tub in my own bath room. 3) I was still pretty weak and this tub was deep so it was actually physically difficult to get out of the tub but Kris was able to help me out (I won't describe this situation because you don't need to know that much information but it was really funny.)

So I got out of the tub, got dressed and put together and then it was time to get Miss Paytan ready to go out into the world and meet the day. Instead of describing this process of getting her ready and loading her up, I will let you see a brief glimpse of what we went through:



Once we were all ready to go, the nurse came in and checked Paytan out in her car seat (thanks mom we wouldn't have been able to take her home with out it.) Also I was to be loaded into a wheel chair because I was still pretty weak and kind of still relaxed from the great bath. The nurse wheeled me out of the Labor and Delivery unit, with Mom behind me and Kris carrying Paytan's car seat. Now as you can see from the video Paytan was in pink. Yet as we went to get on the elevator, an older woman stopped us, I guess knowing that we had spent some time in the Labor and Delivery unit and said "Oh how cute, how is HE doing?" Wait can you hear that? It is my head exploding while I am writing this as I think about this women calling my daughter a boy. Yeah a bit of a touchy issue with me, especially since Paytan was head to toe IN PINK!!!!! Now if she was color blind or possibly going senile I can understand the generic assumption but PINK, I mean PINK! Really? OK, moving on and trying to get over that episode (another side note, not the first time this has happened and I am sure it will crop up in future blog posts when someone refers to Paytan as a boy.)

Here is a video of us actually leaving the hospital building and getting Paytan into the car. Kris had his own battle that day with the car seat to make sure that it was level but after a bit of swearing, finegling and adjusting the car seat was in, success! Then I was loaded into the car and we were off like a herd of turtles in a sand storm (it's not actually a herd it is a turn, bale, dole or nest of turtles but you get the idea. Also it was really cute because Kris drove all the way home like an 85 year old man going no more than about 25 mph and I think his blinker was on for at least 5 blocks. (One last side note, as soon as the door of the car was shut I immediately burst into tears due to all of those fabulous left over pregnancy hormones.)