Our Journey to the NICU

Never in a million years did I expect my perfectly healthy pregnancy and big baby girl to end up in the NICU for 7 days.  Of course, I guess anyone who has a baby that ends up in the NICU doesn't really expect it, no matter what the circumstance.

As I said on Facebook in this post, we have been extremely blessed throughout this process. My time in the NICU, though stressful and emotional for me, is not even remotely close to what many moms and dads have experienced--even some of my own friends who had babies arrive weeks or months earlier have much more compelling stories than my own. I do not, through this post, try to make my situation sound any better than theirs. After all, if you put our situations on a scale, mine would certainly be light.  However, emotionally, I am sure that many of the feelings are the same. So, though my story might be much weaker than many others, I hope you'll endure the telling of it, and lend me grace.

I sent Nick home the first night I was in the hospital. It was what our childbirth instructor suggested us to do, because she said the 2nd night was the really hard one, and that we would rather have a rested husband on the 2nd night than a cranky one.  I recognized how tired Nick was--while I was able to have an Ambien and then have an epidural-induced sleep (totaling around 7 hours), Nick was only able to sleep while I had my epidural (and he is a light sleeper, so he probably didn't sleep all that wonderfully, anyway). Though I desired for him to stay, I also knew that he needed to get some good sleep. I told him to go and come back the next morning--he planned on coming in around 9 or so.

Little did I know then how much I would end up needing him! I hope that writing this doesn't make Nick seem like a bad guy for not staying. We literally had no idea what was going to happen that night, and we only knew the advice that a reliable source had given us: he needed to go home. We both felt (at the time) perfectly happy with that decision.  Nick has been awesome--I don't want this to make it seem like he abandoned me or anything. He totally didn't.

After Avonlea was born, we had a couple of visitors, plus I was hyped up on different drugs and the activities of the day, and although the picture in the previous entry looks like I slept, I didn't sleep at all during the day that Avonlea arrived.

The first night, I stayed up almost all night. I did get an hour of sleep here and there, but they are an exclusive room-in-only hospital. I didn't find this out until later that night--or I might've made arrangements for someone else to stay with me that first night!  I was trying to breastfeed every couple of hours, but she wouldn't latch on for any length of time. I was also extremely itchy from the anesthesia wearing off. I was given Benadryl at one point, and the nurses watched Avonlea for an hour because I fell into a Benadryl sleep.  I was being given oxytocin to help get rid of my blood clots, and the IV made a noise that sounded just like our door opening, so all night long I kept looking over at the door. I kept waking up in pain. And of course, hospitals are just really loud. The nurses also kept coming to get Avonlea over and over to do different tests--a few of them they had to do more than once--turns out, her blood clots super fast and they kept having to redo some of the tests because her samples had clotted too quickly.

I enjoyed having the bonding time with Avonlea--I propped her up on my knees on a pillow, and we just watched each other.

But I was also physically exhausted. I kept needing to call the nurses, which made me feel bad (yes, I know it's their jobs, but I still don't like to be that one who keeps calling over and over).  I mean, I couldn't even get Avonlea out of her baby bed that was right next to mine! So anytime she needed to be changed or fed or wrapped up again, I had to call someone.  Grr...

But, when I really needed Nick was in the morning. At 7am, my doctor came in to check on me and pronounced that I was doing well. Then around 7:30, the pediatrician came in. He introduced himself to me, and explained that one of the tests he had ordered last night was a CBC count, and a CRP count. The CBC count was to see how many white blood cells she had. Her number was 30,000, which seems like a lot, but I guess is only borderline normal. It should be much higher than that. Then, the CRP test checks for inflammation or infection in the body. A good definition I found is:

C-reactive protein is released into the blood by the liver shortly after the start of an infection or inflammation. CRP is an early indicator of these problems because its levels usually start to rise in the blood before symptoms, such as fever and pain, appear.

A normal CRP result in newborns is anywhere from 2-10 at the highest. Avonlea's was 19. The Pediatrician ordered another set of the same tests, to determine whether or not the rise in numbers was just from the trauma of birth, or if it was because of an infection due to her being born so far past the water breaking.

At 10 (when Nick was supposed to get to the hospital), the pediatrician called back and said that the tests had come back. While the CBC had gone back to normal, the CRP result jumped up to 35, indicating an infection. It was then that he rocked my world. He said that she would have to be admitted for a minimum of 48 hours to the NICU for a round of antibiotics.

I really think my world stopped. I don't remember most of the rest of what the pediatrician said. I just remember saying "yeah" and "okay" a lot.

I hung up the phone and called Nick immediately. He was at home, getting ready to go, and I told him to hurry and get here because a lot had gone on while he was at home.  Thankfully, he made it to the hospital before they took her down to the NICU.

After I hung up with Nick, I just held on to Avonlea and cried. It was amazing how I had already established this strong and powerful bond with someone I had just met, not even 24 hours before. While the night before by myself hadn't been my favorite, with little sleep and lots of distractions and feeding complications, when it came right down to it, when someone was going to take my baby away from me, I was willing to do anything I could to hold on to her a little bit longer. I prayed a lot until Nick got to the hospital. Asking God to protect her little body, to strengthen her cells, to help her fight off infection, to bring her back to me as soon as possible.

Taking Avonlea down to the NICU was one of the hardest things I have ever done. We wheeled her in, and I couldn't keep the tears from falling. As we went past the beds of the tiny babies, I couldn't imagine her in one of these places, away from me. It was really hard to watch her being put in that bed all by herself (I'm crying again thinking of it).

I know she won't remember this time in her life at all. She won't remember the IVs and the cords and the tubes. She won't remember the beeping and the alarms going off all around her, and the feeling of life being held on by a thread--but these are things that I won't ever be able to forget.

I am again reminded of how blessed my baby is--I joke that she is the Jolly Green Giant of the NICU ward, because she's so much bigger than the rest of the babies, but it is true, and it is a blessing. We don't get a lot of one-on-one time with the neonatologist--but the fact is, we don't need to talk to her a lot, because Avonlea's problems are small in comparison.

Avonlea's journey in the NICU will last 7 days. Her counts came back after 48 hours back down to 19, but because they didn't go down to normal immediately, it indicated an infection present in her system, so they decided to do the full course of treatment. While it makes me sad, I also know that she is in completely competent, professional hands, and she is getting the absolute best care that she can be given.  In the meantime, I am taking care of myself, getting extra rest and nutrition, and pumping every 2 hours to get my milk supply up for her.

I will post some more pictures of what life in the NICU is like in the next entry.