{"id":2764,"date":"2011-12-20T10:39:19","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T17:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/?p=2764"},"modified":"2025-05-23T17:31:49","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T22:31:49","slug":"hazel-arrives-for-the-week-of-tuesday-december-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/hazel-arrives-for-the-week-of-tuesday-december-13th\/","title":{"rendered":"Hazel Arrives! For the Week of Tuesday, December 13th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Hazel Nicole Guillen arrived on planet earth at 8:50 am on Tuesday December 13th. \u00a0I cried a lot before the surgery, I was gripped by fear and panic and it wasn’t until I heard my own thumping heartbeat echoing through the operating room that I took deep breaths and calmed down. \u00a0Tom was brought into the OR and sat at my side. \u00a0He never stopped talking to me, saying how proud he was of my bravery and what a good mom I already was. \u00a0But it wasn’t until they pulled Hazel out and I heard that first peep of life that I cried tears of joy. \u00a0“She’s perfect!” a nurse exclaimed, and it was the first time I relieved for the first time in a year and a half. \u00a0\u00a0I watched Tom hold her while they finished the surgery and despite the pain I couldn’t stop smiling. \u00a0When I finally got to hold her, I felt like she had built an addition to my heart so big I’d need a special permit to have it.<\/p>\n

Hazel had a lot of visitors that day. \u00a0She slept and cooed and waved her little limbs in the air. \u00a0I felt her little brother in the room with us, loving his sister and reassuring Tom and I that this wasn’t all a dream.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wednesday, December 14th. \u00a0The day after the surgery was the most painful, but taking care of my daughter was more healing than any medicine. \u00a0I got out of bed for her, I stood up for her, I walked for her. \u00a0She and I both passed our blood sugar tests and we started trying to breast feed. \u00a0I knew that breast feeding would be can challenge, but you really don’t know what that means until you’re trying to stuff a giant breast into the mouth of a tiny wailing infant. \u00a0My sister-in-law and best friend were there keeping me company while Tom ran some errands, and we all sat mutely horrified as the nurse helping me looked like she was choking Hazel with my boob. \u00a0Hazel impressed us with her protests, and the nurse gave up long before I did. \u00a0“Try and calm her down, then push her head against your nipple” she called over her shoulder as she walked out of the room. \u00a0When I called her later to help me try again she gave me a really helpful response:<\/p>\n

“You know what I suggest?” \u00a0she said “You should try it yourself”. \u00a0Motherhood and my daze of happiness doesn’t not seem to have affected my ability to make sarcastic comments.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Thursday, December 15th: \u00a0Tom left early in the morning to take a law school final. \u00a0I assured him that Hazel and I would be fine, and that I would take my pain medication and call the nurses for help whenever I needed it. \u00a0 \u00a0We both forgot that while I am pretty assertive in my real life, in the presence of a medical professional I turn into a wilted flower of passivity. \u00a0So despite the obvious lack of logic in my thought process, I decided to try and spend the morning taking care of the baby and ignoring the effects of my major abdominal surgery. \u00a0Hazel and I had a crying contest that only ended when some visitors stopped by and we agreed to act like we could totally manage without Daddy. \u00a0Hazel’s acting skills are much better than mine.<\/p>\n

Tom came back in great spirits after his test and went to get us a special meal of spaghetti and meatballs. \u00a0We felt like a real family. \u00a0When Tom got devastating news about the health of a beloved Uncle, we learned that the loving energy of a baby can sooth a broken heart and tamp down the panic of being far away from a loved one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Friday, December 16th: \u00a0My original personality continued to peak through the sleepy bliss of caring for an infant. \u00a0We spent the day making jokes about how our stay at Prentice was a lot like staying at a nice hotel where the staff just quit their jobs as assembly line workers and decided to become nurses. \u00a0We used humor to mask our annoyance and surprise at how different the level of care was this time compared to when we had Tommy. \u00a0We thought that the attention and love we felt on the Sad Mom floor (they put moms who aren’t with their babies on a special floor at Prentice so you don’t have to be further tortured by the cries of healthy babies) was the standard at Prentice. \u00a0It turns out that on the Happy Mom floor the standard is more like that at the Holiday Inn Express. \u00a0But with nicer amenities. \u00a0It was also a surprise to learn that buzzing a nurse and being told “I’ll be right there” actually meant “I’ll be there within the next one to two hours then give you shit for asking for two pain killers instead of one” and “I’m taking your baby to the nursery for a test we’ll be back in twenty minutes” meant “I’ll take your baby for two hours and when you go to look for her your find her lying in the nursery and I won’t be anywhere to be found”. \u00a0We considered leaving early but knew the best thing for Hazel would be to stay and just be pushy about what we need from the nurses.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Saturday, December 17th: \u00a0We drove Hazel home and started our new life. \u00a0It was so strange to be freed from the tiny hospital room and feel like parents instead of patients. \u00a0After a family nap and feeding, we settled right in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hazel Nicole Guillen arrived on planet earth at 8:50 am on Tuesday December 13th. \u00a0I cried a lot before the surgery, I was gripped by fear and panic and it wasn’t until I heard my own thumping heartbeat echoing through the operating room that I took deep breaths and calmed down. \u00a0Tom was brought into … Continue reading “Hazel Arrives! For the Week of Tuesday, December 13th”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3326,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2764\/revisions\/3326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.poorluckyme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}