As I mentioned in the last post, I am not sure what my husband and I were thinking when we brought our son to the hospital with us. We may not have been thinking, as the whole situation was rather chaotic. Even though there was a bed in the room for my husband and Dylan, it became clear to us at about two o’clock in the morning that we had made a very big mistake. I was in my hospital bed hooked up to an IV. My husband was trying to get Dylan to sleep in the other bed. We were in a strange place, and strange things were happening to Dylan’s Mommy. He was very upset and could not sleep. My husband and I made the decision that they would leave and spend the night at home. When they left, Dylan became hysterical and cried until he fell asleep on the car ride home.
The next morning, I called my father and asked him to go to our house to look after Dylan so that my husband could come to the hospital. Since my family lives three and a half hours away, it was mid day before he arrived at our house. Dylan had a nice afternoon and evening with my dad, and even went to sleep with him at night. At approximately the time that his baby brother was being born, Dylan woke up. He became very upset that I was not at home and began to cry. My dad did his best to soothe him, but it soon became clear that he was experiencing a major meltdown.
At some point, my dad decided that the best thing to do to help him get back to sleep was to go for a car ride. As they got ready to go in the car, Dylan formulated a plan and told my dad exactly what he thought they needed to do. He told my dad that they were going to go and get some donut balls and then they would go and get mama out of the hospital and bring her home. My dad brought Dylan up to the hospital and I think he thought that seeing me would make things better. Unfortunately, he got just as upset as he had the first time. We tried to explain to him that I had a boo boo and could not go home for a few days. He got even more upset.
Eventually my husband and I decided that as much as he wanted to stay with me at the hospital, Dylan needed him at home. My dad had taken care of Dylan before and both of them always have a great time, but Dylan had never spent an overnight without his mama. Fortunately, he was okay with my husband being at home. He still asked for me and cried because I was not there, but each day he got a bit better. The lesson that we learned is that if we had to do it all over again, we would have gotten Dylan some experience with spending the night with grandparents and other caregivers in advance of the birth. We would have had someone come to our house to be with him as soon as we knew that it was time for us to go to the hospital.