Memories....of Birth

In thinking back on Avonlea's birth, I find it amazing the things I remember strongly, and the things I seem to have forgotten.  I went back and read my birth story, and I found myself thinking, "Wow! I don't remember that at all!"

Some things about Avonlea's birth that have stuck with me through the year (warning: some of these are maybe a little gross for those of you unfamiliar with the birth and after-birth processes):

1. I remember very specifically when I was coming out of my epidural meds, and how I was so shaky I thought I was going to drop Avonlea. I made Nick take her, even though I was supposed to be doing skin-to-skin time (something I, of course, felt guilty for later).

2. Speaking of guilt, it took all of 5 minutes for the mom guilt to set in. I felt guilty for everything! I didn't do enough skin-to-skin in the first 2 hours of her life (even though for the first hour I couldn't because I was coming out of major surgery), she cried the whole way from recovery to our new room so I must be a bad mom because what mom can't get her own baby to stop crying?, I couldn't change her diapers without getting someone to help me lift her out of her bed (again, major surgery), I was so exhausted I didn't want to hold her and risk dropping her (again, major surgery), and the big one: I didn't go to the hospital when my water broke, which then pushed everything back, ultimately causing her to be born almost 36 hours afterwards, and thus probably causing her to get the infection that made her have to go to the NICU. That's the one that still haunts me.

3. I HATED those leg compression socks that they put on you after surgery!  Ugh. The Worst.

4. I was super itchy after the epidural wore off.

5. I cried through the whole surgery. It was just the most overwhelmed I have ever been in my whole life. The combination of my dad and my sister missing the birth, plus the ALL DAY drama that was my non-labor and non-contractions and stretching my cervix manually and the doctor basically wearing horse gyno gloves to work on me, plus the constant "birth plan" concessions--all of it just made me a blubbering mess.  When they finally turned the epidural up and laid me on my back and wheeled me out of the room, I had this overwhelming feeling of mom floating angel-like above my bed the whole way into the delivery, and I just lost it. Nick asked me if I was okay at one point, probably because I was crying so much. When they brought Avonlea over to me, I couldn't see her very well through the tears.

6. I got chastised by the overnight nurse my second night after surgery, for using the wheelchair to get down to the NICU to see Avonlea. She told me I should not need it anymore.  Umm...excuse me? 36 hours ago, I had my stomach sliced open, and a nearly-9-pound baby wrangled out of it, and then the incision stitched and taped--TAPED!!--back together!  I wanted to take her stethoscope and shove it...somewhere unpleasant.

7. I was right by the nurse's station, which was a blessing and a curse. Blessing, because I was right by the nurse's station! I could push my little buzzer, and someone would attend to my needs nearly immediately. Curse because, again, right by the nurse's station!  7am and 7pm were the worst, because the shift changes were SO LOUD. I mean, irritatingly so.

8. I was completely exhausted after the birth, and there is this picture of me sleeping next to Avonlea. But I was totally faking, just for the picture. I did not sleep. Like, at all. I just couldn't, for some reason. The whole first night I basically stayed up most of the night, until about 2am, when I finally drifted off.

9. I also got chastised by another nurse, and by the NICU people because when I finally did sleep, both Avonlea and I slept for 6 hours--which, is a huge no-no. I was supposed to be trying to nurse her every 3 hours. But no one was in the room with me, and I finally slept, people! The next morning, when I was supposed to have written down her poops and feeds, and they saw nothing on the chart for the last 6 hours, they talked to me like I was the worst dumb mom ever. I felt terrible.  Oh, did I mention this happened right after they told me they were going to have to take her down to the NICU?  Yeah. Icing on proverbial cake.

10. After I gave birth, I feel like I was essentially a very large bag of water. If I left any part of my body lower than my heart for more than 5 minutes, all the excess water went and hung out in that part--most often, my feet. I can't even express how completely grotesque and awkward that is--I really should've gotten a picture of it.

11. A C-Section is one of the most out-of-body, weird experiences I have ever had. I mean, you're completely numb--but you can still feel things, mostly when the things that are happening affect another part of your body that is not numb. I felt tugging and pulling during the surgery, which was gnarly. But the most weird thing was when they transferred me from the surgery gurney to the rolling bed. I could tell they were rolling me one way and another, I could tell because my head was moving around--but I couldn't feel anything! I wish there were adequate words to explain what that is like.

12. The nice thing about being so numb is that you don't feel the lovely (read: horrible) uterine massages they give you after birth. At least, you don't feel the first few. If, however, you're like me, and you just don't seem to stop having things flow out of you, then they will continue to do them over and over, even after the epidural has started to wear off. Whoa. Not fun.

I realize now that most of these things have to do with having a C-Section. I don't feel like there is adequate information out there about what you should do if you have a C-Section. In our childbirth class, there was about a 15 minute blurb about it from our teacher. I was totally unprepared, physically, mentally, and emotionally for the C-Section. I felt like I had failed Avonlea by not being able to birth her naturally (d*&n cervix!), and by having to do things in this "unnatural" way.

Scars

I have a scar on my right hand, right at the base of my thumb. I remember exactly what happened. I was in high school, and we were bringing our dog Chloe back home from the kennel after a vacation. We had the leash on her, because she had the tendency to bolt out of our yard if we weren't paying attention.  I put the leash around my wrist and opened the door when we got home, and she bolted out of the car and yanked me with her! My hand wrapped around the side of the car door, and cut a 1" cut along my hand.

I see the cut now, and I smile. I don't remember the pain, but I remember Chloe, and the joy she brought into our lives for so many years.  The pain of the moment and the frustration with my dog has faded into nothing over the years, and all I'm left with are happy memories.

I have a new scar. This one is much fresher, and much more vivid. It's a 7 inch long scar across my abdomen.  When I see this scar, I am also reminded of an event.  But the scar that remains also carries with it some intense feelings.

I just finished meeting with my mom group. We all have babies between 6 months pregnant and 14 months old.  One mom today was talking about how she feels insecure in her parenting, and worrying that her baby doesn't realize that she loves him--like their bonding together had been stunted somehow. She said she felt like it stemmed from having a C-section, and then not being with him every moment during the first week he was born (her son also had to go to the NICU for 6 days).  The guilt from that experience was still haunting her--and her son is now 8 months old!

I find myself often thinking about whether or not certain things that are happening with Avonlea wouldn't be happening if I had been able to have a "normal" birth.  Thinking about how for the first week of her life, she didn't see me as the only caregiver. She had 18 different nurses and doctors taking care of her, and I wasn't able to be there 24 hours a day, like I would have if she had been born naturally.  Would she be having a hard time with the things she is having a hard time with if she had been with me constantly from her first minute outside the womb?

I thought about it a lot when we were having trouble breastfeeding for so long.  Like, her being in the NICU (and bottle-fed and on formula) completely handicapped our ability to bond with each other the way that "we are supposed to".  I read this article that I identified with really well: http://www.babycenter.com/0_how-love-blossoms-between-you-and-your-child_1417762.bc?page=3

I also think about how there are many experiences in life that I will be able to have (and have already had).  I have traveled the world. I have gone skydiving. I have performed in front of thousands of people. I have driven across the country.  But I will never be able to say that I birthed a baby--at least, not in the "traditional" way.  I had planned on it that way--I didn't want anything to help me during childbirth. I wanted to do it as naturally as possible. But that's not the way it turned out, and that has caused so much stress and anxiety as I have tried to process through the disappointment.

I am learning that all of these feelings are normal.  But, they also are not from God.  Part of my struggle is to throw off these feelings that Satan puts into my path and into my heart, and realize that my birth story is exactly how God had planned for me.  God knew that Avonlea would come into this world via a C-Section.  He knew that she would be in the NICU, and that I would struggle with the maternal insecurities that stem from that experience.

It's actually part of the reason why I love my scar so much.  I love what it represents.  It is a visual reminder to me that I am not in control of my life. I do not know what is best for myself, and as much as I like to think that my plans will be the best things for my life, they really aren't.  My struggle is to focus on Christ and who He is, and how much He loves me, and loves Avonlea.  I like to think that Jesus looks at his scars from the crucifixion the same way that I look at my C-Section scar.  The experience was painful and heartbreaking. But it brought the greatest joy into my life, and serves as a reminder that I would do the same thing again because it brought my sweet girl to me.  It is beautiful.

During our childbirth class, our instructor said that she had some clients (she was a midwife) that were still struggling to process and accept their birth stories 2 and 3 years after their kids' births.  And when I was in the class, I internally scoffed at that idea.  I was looking at it with the mindset of my own plan, and thinking, "well, that will never happen to me, because I am going to do things *this* way."

But now, looking at this side of the birth experience, I completely understand how that could happen to those ladies. I can see how, without friends and without Christ to lean on and cry out to, you could struggle with the disappointment and the guilt for years after a C-Section.  My prayer is that I will continue to talk to Him about my struggles and fears and doubts, because He doesn't want me to live in that space.

He wants me to continue to see my experience as beautiful and perfect--the way He had planned out for me.

I'm hoping that one day, the feelings that I have when I see the scar on my belly are the same as the feelings I have when I see the scar on my hand.

Roadblock to Happiness #458

Telling an emotional, hormonal woman that she can take her baby home after a week in the hospital is one thing.

Telling an emotional, hormonal woman (who is fully dressed and ready to go) that she can't take her baby home yet because the woman needs to go to the ER to get checked out is enough for an emotional meltdown.

Guess which one happened to me?

Around 1:30pm, we were waiting for our discharge paperwork to come in to the NICU so we could take Avonlea home. I needed to go to the bathroom and talk to the lactation consultant upstairs, so I told the NICU nurse I would be right back.  When I went to the bathroom, I passed a huge blood clot--probably the size of a softball. I called my doctor, but their office was closed, so I decided to ask upstairs on the women's floor what I should do.

While I went upstairs, I noticed that I was bleeding a lot. I have been bleeding since my surgery--not so much of a surprise--but this was a significant amount more.

After I talked to the lactation consultant, I asked the nurse on duty what I should do. They weren't really sure, since I was no longer a patient. They graciously checked me out, though. Although they thought that maybe the clots were from my breast feeding, they thought that I should call my doctor. I did call again, only to learn that they are out of the office on Fridays. I called the doctor on call, and she said that if the bleeding continued for the next half hour, I should go to the ER.

I went back to the NICU and scrubbed in--and realized that I am allergic to the NICU soap. Every day my arms would burn a little bit, but this day they burned a lot, and they got really red and bumpy. I was hoping that this would be the last day for scrubbing in!

The nurse was concerned about me, since I was only supposed to go to the bathroom, and I ended up being gone for so long. When I told her about the bathroom, she got more concerned and flustered. Nick arrived shortly after, and we watched a mandatory CPR video while I filled him in on my bathroom drama.

We finished the video and packed everything up, and I was getting really emotional. I was getting asked over and over if I was okay, and I just wanted to get Avonlea and go. Finally, just before I was to sit down in the wheelchair and get Avonlea and go down to the car, Nick said he wanted me to go and check one more time.

Well, I had bled through the 2 pads I got from the nurses, and I was leaking onto my undies and pants.

Well, that was it. They wheeled me down to the ER instead, and they kept Avonlea in the NICU while we figured out what was going on.

I had blood drawn, urine sample taken, an ultrasound done (both internal and external), and another blood draw. Turns out, my hemoglobin levels were pretty low, so they gave me a shot to help slow down the bleeding, and monitored me for a couple of hours to see if my levels would go up.

They didn't go up at all, but they sent me home anyway. We kept reminding them that we had to go and get our daughter from the NICU, which I think helped influence their decision. They gave me a prescription for a medicine that would help my bleeding to stop....but after a drama session of Nick trying to find this obscure drug all over the Valley, it turns out I probably won't be taking it because it says that it can cause harm to a breastfeeding baby.

I am feeling better today. Low hemoglobin is a sign of anemia, so my neighbor gave me some iron supplements to take. It causes exhaustion and a loss of concentration, which hasn't been good for my emotional state today. But, we're getting through it all right.

Again, much acknowledgements to Nick for going above and beyond. He helped to soothe me as my emotions threatened to take over me in the ER. He went and got a breast pump for me from the NICU so that I could send milk up to Avonlea. He held my hand through the ultrasound when they mentioned that a possibility could be a D&C procedure. He fetched a breast pump (again) when we ended up being in the ER longer than we originally thought. He drove to 3 different pharmacies and called probably 8 more in search of my prescription--and bought me heavier pads in the process. What a man.

And at the end of the night, this emotional, exhausted, anemic momma got to take her baby home. Finally.

The Big Day

We get to bring Avonlea home today!!

Yay!!

And also, eek!!

I wrote celebratory texts to some friends last night, after we got the confirmation from the doctor that she would be going home, and I will admit--I had mixed emotions.

Please, don't think that I'm not 1000% happy about bringing Avonlea home. Not just because of this primal desire to have her next to me, but also for the practicality of it--we have made so many trips back and forth to the hospital, and I'm tired, and Nick is tired, and it's been really stressful to have Nick spending part of his day at work and I'm at the hospital and learning how to do things, and...whew. I'm ready for us all to be together, and to have the "first week" that we should've had last week.

But, there are also other emotions. The over-riding one is nervousness. I feel like I have had this easing into parenting. Because she was in the NICU, we didn't take her home for the first week. We didn't bump through those crazy hours right away.  I have felt like a part-time parent.  Today, we go from being part-time parents to being full-time parents. And there are so many unknowns.  Will I be able to provide enough milk for her? Will she continue to latch on and breastfeed without someone's help? Will she go through all of our diapers on the first day? How will she sleep at our house? Will it be too cold at night for her? Will it be too hot during the day? How will the dogs react? Will they try to pee on her (Nick says this is an irrational question)? What will our routine look like? Will Nick feel comfortable? Will I make him feel like less of a part of things because of my role as food-provider? Will I get enough sleep to be a loving, caring mother and not a raving lunatic who hates her daughter who won't let her sleep (biggest fear)?

There's just so many questions and unknowns that I go into today with a sort of tentative happiness. Honestly, I wish I had someone who would be able to be my own personal Google, and answer my questions and settle my fears when I have them--oh, wait. I DO. Maybe not the direct line to Google (that might be Nick's job), but I do have someone who can settle my fears. Thank God for prayer.

I have had many encouraging notes over the last week, from wonderful people who have been through this before and lived to tell about it. To those people, your texts and your messages have really buoyed me up, and I am so thankful. Now, I covet your prayers as we REALLY start this journey together as parents. We need His help to get through these next few weeks, months, years.  I want to be a good mother to Avonlea, and a good wife to Nick. I want to be a support and an encouragement and a helper and a provider.  I want Nick to be a good father and a supportive husband and a confident leader--and I want him to feel like I know he is those things, too.

Last night, Nick and I took our last non-parent trip to Target. We were buying things for Avonlea, but we were by ourselves. No kid. And we were joking and laughing together. I was teasing Nick about pushing the cart slow while he was texting, and he was playing on the escalator, trying to hold himself up on his hands the whole ride down. I was laughing and he was teasing me, and I thought, "I love this man. I can't wait for Avonlea to join in this family and make her own little part in it." What will she bring to our little home? What part will she take up? Will she be a joker and a teaser like her Daddy?  Will she be creative and athletic like mommy? Will she be a problem-solver? Will she be inquisitive? Will she be sensitive and caring?

I guess, starting today, we will find out.  Help us, Lord Jesus, to do Your Will as parents. We will lean on You for guidance and strength and compassion and ENERGY as we start this journey together.

Adventures In Breastfeeding

One of the most amazing things about the birthing process to me is breastfeeding.  This tiny human comes out of you, having spent the last 9 months eating through their stomach, and with a whack on their back, they suddenly are able to eat, breathe, and cry out of their mouths.  Really, the whole system just makes evolution seem more and more ridiculous.  But, anyways...

Though breastfeeding is miraculous, it is far from easy. For me, it was not natural, not instinctual, not easy. When they handed the baby to me a half-hour after the surgery, and told me to feed her, I was so lost as to what to do. If there was any part of the baby process I wasn't ready for, this was it. I hadn't read enough books (or, any books for that matter), and the whole thing seemed so....confusing. I had no idea if I was doing it right, and no idea if she was getting remotely what she needed to survive. I took comfort in the fact that babies don't need a ton of nutrition right after they are born--but was I going to be able to do anything to get her what she needed?

The first night, Nick went home, and Avonlea and I did our best. She would go where she was supposed to, and suck a couple of times in a row, and then be done. It seemed like a victory to me, but I wasn't really sure. Then, she slept like a rock for 6 hours--and subsequently, I did, too--right before we were admitted to the NICU.  I knew I was supposed to be feeding her every 2 hours, but no one came to wake me up, and Avonlea didn't wake me up crying, so I guess she wasn't hungry.

I might have been okay if Avonlea hadn't needed to go to the NICU. Maybe I would've figured out the latching thing (I mean, how do you know what it is, exactly--when you have no context for what it's like in the first place?). Maybe I would've had an amazing lactation consultation the day after her birth, and we would've sailed on with flying colors.

But, it wasn't meant to be that way. Avonlea had to go to the NICU, and I had to tell them exactly how much she was nursing, and for how long she was latched on. The NICU is nothing if not precise in their measurements (they even measure how much each diaper weighs!). I started guessing. "Umm...well, I felt tugging on the left side for a couple of minutes, but it wasn't repeatedly tugging, so I guess maybe 5 minutes on that side?"

This doesn't sit well with NICU nurses. They want to know how high you jumped, and what shoes you jumped with, and what you were wearing at the time, and if your hair was wet or not--oh, and did you poop beforehand, because that might've made a difference in your height?  When they asked me when the last time she ate was, and I had to tell them, "6 hours ago", they looked at me like I was the worst mom ever. Seriously, there were bugged eyes. One of the nurses said, "you should have woken her up to feed her--she's a newborn."  Add to the fact that I was already crying because they were taking my daughter away, and it wasn't a good admission process.

It wasn't but a few hours into the stay at the NICU that they had Avonlea on bottled formula. Inside, I am screaming against it--but what can I really do? She's on antibiotics, so she has to have nutrition going through her system to get the kidneys flowing. And I'm only producing colostrum at this point (I knew that much, at least), so she's not getting that nutrition from me at this point--and I don't even know if she's getting my colostrum in the first place, because I don't wake up often enough, and mostly because I don't know what latching on is.

It was another area where I felt like a failure. Not only did I not get to have the birth experience that I wanted, but now I wasn't going to have the feeding that I wanted. I didn't want her to have sugar water--she got a paci dipped in it right after she was born. I wanted to breastfeed exclusively--I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn't want her to have formula supplements--she was on it as soon as we got to the NICU.

A nurse came and dropped off a pump to me, and told me I needed to pump every couple of hours. I had no idea how long I was supposed to pump, and I wasn't getting anything during the pumping. Is that normal? Or, I would get one or two drops. The NICU nurses told me to bring down anything that I was able to get--did they really mean for me to take down two drops of colostrum?  The NICU nurses seemed to indicate that yes, I should--but then the nurses on my floor rolled their eyes at my pithy little 5 droplets, and told me that they couldn't do anything with it.  The first time I threw away my vial with more than 2 drops in it, I cried.

Over the course of Friday, between running down to the NICU any chance I got, and back up to my room to eat or sign papers or go to the bathroom or get examined, I pumped. I pumped for 15 minutes on the dot, maybe every 3 hours or so.  And slowly, I started to get some production. Not a lot--less than 5cc's each time, and more from one side than the other--but it was a start.  The nurse who told me to throw away my little bottles of colostrum now told me that she was wrong and that I should take down anything and they would make it work--so I started feeling more confident. Friday night, I commented to Nick that I felt like my milk might be coming in, because my breasts felt a lot heavier and fuller.  When I went to bed, I got a raging case of the chills, and then in the middle of the night I had the sweats.

Then, Saturday morning, I woke up and my breasts were as hard as rocks. Like, I thought my skin was going to tear apart. I knew, if I wasn't on my pain medicine, I would probably have woken up screaming in pain.  Yeah, you guessed it. I was completely engorged on both sides.  I called my nurse, who came in and checked me and confirmed that I was engorged. She got me an anti-inflammatory drug (but not a lactation consultant).  I went online and looked up engorgement treatment, and started doing 15 minutes of heat, then pump for 20 minutes (while Nick massaged me), then 15 minutes of ice. My time away from my daughter was getting longer and longer, and now I wasn't getting anything out of my breasts.

I was tired, I was frustrated, and I was wishing I had some clue as to what was going on.

After reading some more, I went to only a few minutes of heat, then pump with massage, then ice. And again, slowly I started to get some production, and some relief from the stretching and the painful knots and lumps.

As my milk production grew (about 10cc's a day), I got more and more happy that I was able to provide some better nutrition for my daughter. Downstairs, she was not doing well with the formula. Yeah, enough of it was staying down for her to be doing fine health-wise, but she was getting a reputation as the pukiest, poopiest kid on the block.  There were 2 nurses who literally had to change their scrubs from top to bottom because Avonlea puked so violently on them.

She was also POUNDING her food. She would drink an entire bottle of formula in 2 minutes.

I was so excited to take down this bottle one morning:

Only to watch in dismay as she ate it in 35 seconds.  It took me all night to get that, girl!

Finally, on Saturday, a lactation consultant came to my room. She asked me a bunch of questions and handed me a bunch of flyers. When I told her that I wanted someone to come to the NICU and help me with Avonlea hands-on, she made an appointment for me the next day.

On Sunday afternoon, I finally had my first lactation appointment.  And it was hellish.  I stayed pretty cool the whole time--more than I can say for the lactation nurse--she was frustrated!  See, since Avonlea had gone so many days on the bottle, she was used to eating the easy way. Also, in the NICU, they feed "ad lib". So, basically whenever she started crying, they would feed her--so by Sunday, whenever she didn't get fed, she screamed bloody murder.  I mean, outrageous, purple-in-the-face ridiculous screaming.  Surprisingly, the screaming doesn't really bother me--but it did bother the NICU nurses. I learned this on one of the first days down there trying to breastfeed her. She started to cry, and 3 different nurses came to check on me to see what was wrong. (I felt really pressured to get the feeding thing right from them, and so when it wasn't going well, I felt really pressured to give in to the formula thing quickly--mommy guilt at its finest.)

We ended up feeding her the bottle, but the lactation nurse said we would try again. She had a couple of things she wanted to do.

Well, when we finally got together on Tuesday, it worked, and I finally learned what REAL latching on feels like! We used a breast shield to help us, and I think it really helped Avonlea to get hooked on right. I was excited and happy, and Avonlea actually ate from me for 15 minutes on both sides! Victory! She was only doing 5 or 6 sucks at a time, and she would stop every 5 minutes or so to fuss, but she was doing it!  Tuesday was the first day that she had enough milk (from a bottle) from me to last all day--and she didn't vomit at all the whole day.

I had a lingering doubt, though. Nick tried to help me put the nipple shield on the other side, and it was really hard to do. And I was thinking, "what am I going to do when the nurse isn't here? I'm not going to be able to put this thing on by myself."

In fact, today when I went in, I didn't think I would be breastfeeding, because I couldn't do it by myself.

And that's when God sent Vicki.  I have had a different nurse every day with Avonlea--but today's nurse also spent 27 years with her own lactation consultation business. She graciously stepped in to help me. A no-nonsense Hispanic lady, she quickly took charge and told me exactly what we were going to do. She told me to put the nipple shield away. She helped me to hold her the right way, to calm her before feeding, to talk quietly to her, to lead her nose-first to the breast. All things that the other consultant had told me, but this time it really clicked. I was doing it on my own--and Avonlea took to it like a charm. It took maybe 5 minutes of re-working my hold, and guiding my nipple to her correctly, but she totally got it.  She latched on to me sans nipple shield, and ate for 20 minutes without stopping. She went up to 10-20 sucks in a row, and not once did she let go of me.

Vicki actually suggested only feeding Avonlea on one side for a while, that way she can get used to the hold, get used to opening her mouth wide, and get used to working a little harder for the food. Vicki explained what I needed to be doing while pumping in a language I could understand, using her hands to demonstrate what she meant. She didn't come in and take over what I was doing, but she guided me to the right technique. She was a fabulous teacher.

When Nick came to pick me up, I wasn't ready--I wanted to stay and feed her again! This time, Vicki didn't help me at all. In fact, I didn't even know she was watching--until I had gotten Avonlea latched on, and I heard her praise me from the side of Avonlea's bed, telling me I had gotten an A+.

Tonight, when Nick and I went back for our evening with Avonlea, I couldn't wait to show him what I had learned. And Avonlea stepped up like a champ. She ate for 25 minutes on one side, and then used the bottle for the rest (which we'll do until I feel like I can take her to my other side). I was so proud to see her little Momma's Milk Mustache:

Breastfeeding has been a struggle, but I am loving where I am at now. I know that there will be hard times ahead still--but now I know that I can do it by myself, without any tricks or special tools. Just her and me, the way it's supposed to be.

(I left out a few details of this story, I am sure, but I am tired and I need to go and pump.)

The NICU Life in Pictures (and a few words)

Head down.

Scrub in.

Find baby.

Name check.

Say hi.

Nail check.

IV move.

Stare at Daddy.

Celebrate milk.

Celebrate more milk!

Swing time.

Bath time.

Snuggle Daddy.

Big burps.

Sniff head.

Stare at Mommy.

Porthole view.

Post-sleep looks.

Diaper time.

Get mad.

Feeding time.

Snuggle butt.

Food coma.

Talk to Mommy.

Size compare.

Say goodnight.

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.