All the nurses are well trained, good natured and very helpful. Well, all except two, and here is the first one that we survived.
On the first night, Renee had her first stool. They were really hard to get off, and I had not learned that I should just be firm. With Renee wailing I called the nurse to teach us. That nursed came, walked into the room, took a look at the baby and made the statement that the baby was too small and started asking why Lianxin dose not have a breast pump. Later I found out that when she made that statement, she didn't knew how old Renee was, didn't know that we had an induced labor because the baby was too small, and probably didn't even know how much Renee weighed upon birth. At that moment, her authority figure simply got us worried even more.
Later in the midnight, she came in again to take Renee to the nursery to check the weight, body temperature and blood sugar. Lianxin was already a bit stressful by then. I told Lianxin that I would go wherever Renee goes, and that the only thing she needs to do is to get some rest.
We went to the nursery. She told me to take off all the Renee's clothing, including the diaper. As I struggle through all the clumsiness fightings to take off the clothes and diaper of a wailing baby, she was off somewhere (doing some preparation I guess) and didn't come back when Renee was ready. So there I was, standing in front of a naked crying daughter, with vent blowing on top of us. I tried to block the wind as much as I could. I tried to hold her but I was just afraid that I would break her in my attempt of calming a crying and kicking baby. (If only I knew then what I know now, I would have known that having wind blowing at a naked small baby is really really bad, and that she was strong enough that I should have just held her in my arm)
Finally, she came back and weighed Renee. Sure enough, Renee lost some weight. Making the fuss about the baby is not feeding enough, that nurse ask me to hold the thermometer at the armpit, again, of a screaming and kicking baby. When the reading turned out to be below the normal, she said that it was because I was not holding Renee's arm firm enough, and told me to do it again. We did all these at the same place in the room where the vent was just blowing the wind at us.
When second test shows again that Renee's body temperature is below normal, she pushed the baby to the body heater, while kept saying that the baby needed more milk. I stayed with the baby, thinking that Lianxin would be sound sleeping taking her rest. Then I turned my head, only to see Lianxin at the front door of the nursery. For that spur of moment, I was a bit annoyed. When she come up, I asked her why she was not in the bed sleeping. She showed me a little tube with some expressed milk, told me that the nurse went to the room again. I learned later that she told Lianxin that the body temperature was low, and predicated that the blood sugar would be low as well. She gave her the tube and told her to squeeze as much as she could.
At that time, the nurse showed up and start saying again that the baby needed more milk and she was low on sugar. And guess what, IT WAS NOT! AND The other nurse who took the blood sugar test while she was away had to keep on telling her that it was not. SHE DIDN'T EVEN LOOKED AT THE FREAKING RESULT! All she did after showing up was taking a look at the milk in Lianxin's hand and said "That is all you can have?" The other nurse was very nice, saying that milk was milk no matter how much and helped us feed the baby right away.
At that point, I pretty much decided that I needed a second opinion. I told Lianxin that I would take care of whatever needed to be done and stay with Renee the whole time. I also told her that for one the body temperature was low probably because of the naked body was under the freaking vent, and that we are heating her up as we speak, so she should just go back and take the rest.
In one of the shifts coming up later, we got a very good nurse who taught us how to burp and calm the baby. We consulted with her about the fact that we didn't think the baby was getting enough milk either but expressing didn't seem to help, and that we think we should keep on breastfeeding, but follow it up with supplements.
This nurse asked us about the history of the child and the mom, and told us that she saw the note about the breast pump. It is then we learned that the other nurse was not even from this section. Her role was actually something called "vocational nurse". She was just supposed to collect data, make observations and pass on any recommendations to a nurse in the nursery who is authorized to talk to us.
After the discussion, we decided on the plan to follow the breast feeding with supplements.
Now thinking back, I am just glad that everyone turned out ok.
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