The adjustment to home life has been good. I will admit though, I did not want to leave the hospital and sometimes wish they would just let me come back to stay the night. Having Landen was my first stay in a hospital ever and it was a great experience. How on earth was a stay at a hospital so great? Well, where to begin. First off, the bed. It had a remote control so I could just raise my head or raise my feet. Absolutely no ab work required! Which was a good thing in my case since I couldn't (and still can't) use my abdominal muscles to my liking. I asked Chad if I could a hospital bed for home and he said no. I think someone is just being a grumpy bear.
Secondly, the food was awesome. Not only did I not have to fix my own food, I didn't even have to think about what I wanted to eat. An amazing person in the dietary services department at the hospital had my meals all planned out and they were even kind enough to let me eat all of my meals in bed. Loved it. Oh! But the best part about the food, was that pretty much every meal involved gravy in some way. For breakfast, I had a biscuit with some gravy. Lunch, a hamburger patty with gravy. Dinner, you guessed it, something with gravy! Apparently, gravy has magical healing powers and I really attribute my fast recovery to gravy. I don't know if I was always just hungry when I was brought my food or if it was the graviness that gave me an appetite, but even this was delicious:
Yup, that is green Jell-O with carrots in it.
The nursing staff at the hospital was amazing and I can't say enough great things about these ladies. Since Lewistown is a smaller town and not always super busy in the baby delivering department, Chad, Landen and I were the only guests for the majority of our stay so we had a lot of great one to one care. The care was so great that when the doctor gave me the option to go home on the third day or stay another day, I opted to stay one more day. Plus, I hadn't gotten the whole breastfeeding thing down yet and the night nurse was a breastfeeding guru, so I jumped at the chance to have some more time with her guidance.
The day I was finally willing to go home, disaster struck at home and my gravy train came to a halt. Chad and I were sitting in my hospital room when Chad received a call from my Mom that water from the upstairs bathroom was leaking through our kitchen ceiling. I told Chad to drive as fast as he could to go see what was going on. As Chad went home to check out the situation, I anxiously awaited news from him. And by anxiously await, I mean, on the verge of tears until I heard from Chad. Finally! I got a call from Chad and the outlook was not so good. At first glance, it looked like a joint in our plumbing was on the outs and was the culprit for the water in our kitchen. It was a Sunday afternoon and not only do plumbers not work on Sundays, all of Lewistown shuts down so we were going to go without using that bathroom for a day, maybe two. This meant no showers for that amount of time. In preparation for no access to showering for a day or two, I took a shower at the hospital before the doctor came to discharge me. The second I set foot in the shower, I just break down into tears. I mean, it was the uncontrollable sobbing action- crying so hard that no sound was able to come out (which was a good thing because the nurse may have called in for a psych consult if she heard me). I was a mess. I think I might have been like this when I watched that movie The Notebook for the first time. I was so upset that we had this beautiful and perfect baby boy and we had to take him home to a house that was falling apart. So fast forward a bit, the plumber came out a couple days later, quickly looked at the problem, charged us twenty bucks and said that we just needed to re-caulk our shower as that is where the water was coming from. All right! Easy fix indeed and the Williams were able to shower again.
Chad and I were lucky enough to have family come help us with the adjustment to home life with baby. I never knew laundry could be done so fast, it was great. I also never would have thunk that babies, being as little as they are, go through so much laundry. Chad's parents fixed our plumbing issues (thanks again!) and finished some of our painting projects that we had been putting off for months. We even let Chad and his Dad get out to do some manly things like hike in the wilderness and go to the gun range. It truly isn't a visit to Montana unless you can get out into the wilderness or at least shoot something- no lie. I think they even have postcards that say this.
All in all, being a parent is the best thing ever. Our sleeping pattern is pretty much figured out and we are starting to get a routine going. Chad is the best Dad ever and I couldn't have dreamed of a better husband, partner and best friend to go through parenthood with. Life can't always be a gravy train, but it sure is great most of the time if you can spend it with the folks you love! This lesson has recently been even more reinforced to us as we lost a friend, Jan, in a hiking accident in The Crazy Mountains. Jan was the type of person you met once and instantly fell in love with. She loved life, loved adventure and most of all loved her family and Jan and her husband combined all three on a regular basis. We'll miss Jan like crazy, but her legacy of being a great parent and living life to the fullest with the people she loved will live on as this is how Chad and I want to make sure to live our lives. And we really hope you all come for a visit! We'll take you into the great outdoors and maybe even take you to go shoot something.
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