Yay for feedback!
A few overarching comments - I had asked a couple friends who had kids back in the late 90s and they said they used formula, so I assumed that was normal. When I have a chance later this week, I'll update this so it says that nursing was more common.
I probably won't change the fact that they needed to go to Boston for a hospital that allowed Lois to room-in with Larissa as that's a more complicated change. And I'm not sure it's unrealistic. I live on the outskirts of NYC, but when I got pregnant the first time (2 years ago) the closest hospital that provided rooming in was in Conneticut. Luckily, by the time my DD was born, the hospital down the road had redone their maternity ward to include this.
Also, as for Lois having to wait all that time before seeing Larissa – as I said this is partly autobiographical, and despite the fact that it is now 2010 and it is pretty common knowledge that the sooner you nurse after delivery the better, particularly with a c-section, it was hours before I was allowed to see my daughter, let alone nurse her. I can’t recall how long now, but all of the things that happened to Lois happened to me as well. It was at least two hours, and I want to say it was more like three or four after she was born before she was in my arms.
There was nothing wrong with her (although to be fair my c-section was as they had feared there would be) except that she was small. But she was over the size limit to be kept out of the NICU, so that shouldn’t have mattered. (Once in the nursery they were quiet cautious with her as she was just over the limit, so she was the smallest baby they had in there, but certainly that shouldn’t have been a reason for her to be kept from me.)
Not sure why, but also like Lois, I didn’t get to see her until after my husband was allowed to hold her and brought her over. I’m guessing my doc just didn’t think about holding her up high enough as generally he was good about those sorts of things. But then again, they were worried about her before the CS, so maybe he was focused on that – they thought she didn’t have enough amniotic fluid, although she was fine in the end.
Thanks to all for the comments! I have started the next chapter, so maybe will be able to post again sometime this week.
