I was really prepared for labor and delivery. I was excited. And it turned out even better than I had hoped. The next part of the story was just a bit different. My physical recovery was fine - no tearing, no stitches, very minimal bleeding, I could easily walk around a couple of hours after birth and I didn't need any tylenol or anything. I'm really thankful that my physical health was fine because my mental health was about to be tested.
Five hours after he was born, while the nurse was doing her normal check-ins on us in the Maternity Ward, she noticed that Gideon was breathing pretty fast. She wanted the docs to take a look. Jonathan was passed out, still trying to recover from his stomach bug, and I thought it would just be a quick once-over with the doctor so I asked Karissa, our doula, if she could go with Gideon and watch the docs do their check. After a while I decided to head out to see what was happening. I got to the nursery and saw Gideon in a warming bed with probably five doctors standing over him. I was still really cheerful. I couldn't hear anything they were saying because I was watching through the window, so I made up a conversation and Karissa and I just talked and watched them watching him.
Finally, they let me in and the docs talked to me. They told me that he was indeed breathing pretty fast and they wanted to make sure nothing was amiss, so they asked for a team from the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) to come up to have a listen and see what they thought. I was fine with that. The NICU team came up and agreed that his breathing was faster than ideal (he was taking about 120 breaths a minute at his max - ideally a newborn would take something like 60). They decided to do an x-ray of his lungs to see if there was fluid or anything. An x-ray guy came into the nursery with his big machine and did the x-ray right there. After a little bit, the docs said it looked like there was a little bit of fluid in his lungs and they wanted to take him down to the NICU just for the night to make sure he was okay. They said that they needed to have access to oxygen in case he needed it, and the Maternity nursery or rooms don't have that, so he'd have to be in the NICU.
I said okay. Sounded reasonable to me.
Then a NICU doctor asked me if my milk was in yet (about 6 hours after giving birth). I seriously thought she was joking and said no. She asked me if I was okay with supplementing Gideon with formula and I said absolutely not but that if he had to be supplemented, they could use donor breastmilk. In retrospect I guess it should have been a red flag that they were asking me these questions. I don't know - I was just a few hours past labor and trying to make decisions on my own that would be the best for Gideon. I asked if I could go with him to the NICU and they said they needed about an hour to "get everything set up" but that they would call when I could come down. They said Gideon had Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn (TTN), most likely because he was born so quickly that he didn't get time in the birth canal to squeeze all of the fluids out of his lungs. They said it usually resolves itself - any remaining fluid is absorbed into the body and no interventions are needed. But they wanted to be safe and keep an eye on him. Sounded reasonable.
I went back to the room, Karissa headed home, and I waited for the call. They didn't call. So I finally talked to my nurse and got someone to tell me how to get to the NICU. Jonathan couldn't come because he'd been sick and the NICU is not a good place to bring any lingering germs, so I was on my own. I had to sign out of the Maternity Ward, wear a sticker saying where I was going and for how long, and then get down there... I signed in at the NICU and they showed me how I was supposed to wash my hands up the elbows at a big sink, and then how to find Pod E, where Gideon was in bed space 35.
He was on a big warming bed with so many wires connected to him. I could see at least 6 little dots on his hands and arms from where they'd tried to place IVs and I felt awful for him. His blood pressure, oxygen saturation, heart rate, and all kinds of other stuff was being monitored and alarms would go off anytime something was to high or too low. The nurse told me that he had an IV giving him fluids and dextrose, and giving him doses of antibiotics. I was surprised and a little bit confused because I really didn't know they would be doing that. I thought they told me he was just going to the NICU for monitoring overnight. For a transient condition. Now here he was all wired up. He also had a pacifier in his mouth. So they were giving him sugar water and a pacifier - fantastic ways to undermine successful breastfeeding. I was really surprised because in L&D and the Maternity Ward, they pride themselves on the hospital's recent "Baby Friendly" designation and they would never give a baby a pacifier or do anything to hurt breastfeeding, but I quickly learned that the rules are out the window in the NICU. I had the nurse make a sign for his bed saying "No Pacis Please."
The docs told me that as a precaution they were also giving Gideon 48 hours of antibiotics through his IV. I didn't think too much of that - I was fine with it. But it would turn out to be important later.
I went back up to the room and asked the nurse to call when Gideon woke up so I could go down to nurse him. I told Jonathan everything about the NICU and we just hung out in the room. That night I either waited for the NICU nurse to call or I set an alarm and got up on my own to go down and try to nurse him at least every 3 hours. I would have to sign out of Maternity, scrub in to the NICU, go get him and try to manage all the cords and alarms and see if he would eat. He wasn't too interested, seeing as how he was getting sugar from his IV. It was frustrating.
The next morning, Thursday, the nurse and doctors explained that Gideon's breathing was fine. He never needed oxygen and he was breathing room air and his Tachypnea was under control (breathing rate was normal). I thought that meant he could come back up to our room on the Maternity Ward. But they said no because he still had to get his antibiotic treatments through is IV, and they don't do that on the Maternity Ward.
I was not happy. I kept it together but I'm pretty sure breakdown #1 came the moment I walked back into our room in Maternity and explained everything to Jonathan. They were keeping Gideon in the NICU and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt like he was in the NICU for no good reason at this point, and I felt like I'd been lied to when they said they just wanted to monitor him overnight. Why would they say that if they knew they were going to give him an IV and anitbiotics and that doing so would tether him to the NICU?
All day Thursday I was back and forth from Maternity to the NICU. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, but the nurses and docs needed to check me too, to make sure everything was okay after delivery. There was birth certificate paperwork to do and all kinds of little stuff up on Maternity. I had to eat when they brought meals to Maternity - I would eat as fast as possible and then go down to try to get more time and nursing established with Gideon. Back and forth all day and all night. At some point Jonathan came down too, since he'd been symptom free for 24 hours. It was nice when he could be there with us. Thursday night, or early Friday morning technically, I had asked for a reclining chair so I could hold Gideon skin-to-skin. I laid back and held him there and started to fall asleep and the nurse quickly informed me that I was not allowed to sleep in the NICU. I was so exhausted. I willed myself to stay awake, looking around the room, doing whatever I could to stay up so that I could be with Gideon. I started to really resent that he was there in the NICU with all of these rules and all of these interventions. They're great for babies who need them, but I had a healthy full-term baby who was trapped in this crazy place with all these rules.
So, Friday came. Gideon's last dose of antibiotics was at 6 AM and I expected that he'd be allowed to go up to Maternity at that point. We had to wait for the docs to do their morning rounds to decide. They said that his dosages were done, but they still wanted to watch him in case there was some kind of infection and they needed 48 hours to be able to tell - that would be 6:30 PM when the 48 hours were up. They finally backed off on the dextrose and then they took out the IV, and I was really thankful for that. They kept asking if my milk was in yet (less than 48 hours after delivery) and they seemed unhappy about how nursing was going. I had a lactation consultant there every single time we tried to nurse and I thought Gideon was really doing great. He latched on and sucked - I just didn't have a whole lot to give (which is NORMAL) and the docs seemed to want him to be drinking ounces and ounces by now. I began to suspect they were quite uninformed about the normal course of lactation and how successful breastfeeding works. With the exception of one NICU nurse we had who was herself a lactation consultant, the nurses and doctors in the NICU confirmed my suspicions in this are repeatedly. It was unbelievably frustrating.
Dr. Nervous and the attending, Dr. Neutz (who caught Gideon) were on Maternity for rounds that morning and I knew he could clearly see that I'd been crying. He talked to me about Post-Partum Depression (PPD). When he left, I told Jonathan that I had zero bad thoughts toward Gideon or myself or anyone but the NICU doctors, really. No, I didn't want to hurt my baby. But there were some docs who might want to watch their backs. ;)
So it was Friday, and I was discharged from the hospital. We tried to keep our Maternity Ward room but the docs said there was no wiggle room - you get two midnights after you deliver and then you're out (with a normal vaginal delivery). The NICU nurses said that we could stay in a sleeping room in the NICU and they signed us up for the room for the night. Gideon wasn't being discharged because his 48 hour bilirubin count came back significantly elevated from his 24 hour count (24 hours was 9, 48 was 14). They put him on phototherapy with a Bili Blanket (like a tanning bed type of light to help him process the bilirubin).
So now Jaundice was the issue. The doctors told us that, had we been able to stay in Maternity, they would have sent Gideon back up to be in the room with us and under the Bili lights (just like Evelyn was while we were in the hospital with her). But, because I'd been discharged, they couldn't send Gideon upstairs so he had to stay in the NICU.
First he was in the NICU for a transient breathing problem that resolved itself without intervention. Then he was there for purely iatrogenic reasons - they made him have antibiotics and monitoring "just in case." Now he was there for a moderate-to-high Bili count (it's very concerning when the number is above 20).
Jonathan and I talked a lot and decided that he should go get Evelyn and head home with her. She'd been staying with my friend since Wednesday morning and we knew that she would probably want to be home with her dad if possible. I spent Friday night in the sleeping room, with the nurse calling me anytime Gideon made motions looking like he was hungry. My milk still wasn't in, which will still TOTALLY NORMAL seemed to be like the worst thing ever to any NICU doc who talked to me.
In the middle of the night, the fellow and a resident came in to the sleeping room and woke me up to let me know that they were concerned with Gideon's output in terms of poop and pee. He wasn't going enough. They said that since I was refusing formula, I had two options - give him 30 mL of donor breast milk at every feeding using a supplemental nursing system, or they would put a tube down his nose into his stomach and force-feed him. It was 2 AM. I was exhausted. I started to lose my cool and I said, "You will not be doing that. Absolutely not," when they mentioned the tube. I said fine, if it gets you off my back, I will stuff my baby as full of donor milk as I possibly can (I used the supplemental system and spoon-fed him because he didn't get all 30 mL down through the system). It's a lot to ask a not even 72 hours old infant to take in 30 mL at every feeding - that's about the max of their stomach capacity. But I tried to stuff him as much as I could. He was under additional lights (not just the blanket) now because his Bili had continued to go up when they checked it on Friday night.
They started checking his Bilirubin twice daily - at 6 AM and 6 PM. Here are his numbers and the interventions they decided to do:
24 hours of life (Thursday): 9
48 hours of life Friday AM): 14 (start bili blanket)
60 hours of life (Friday PM): 17 (start donor milk supplementation and additional phototherapy lights)
72 hours of life (Saturday AM): 14 (discontinue lights, continue blanket and donor milk)
Then, Saturday afternoon, my milk came in! Hooray! I celebrated by myself in my little windowless sleeping room. Then I called Jonathan who was really excited too. Then I told the nurse and some docs, who said, "Do you think you would really know when it came in?" and "Are you really sure?" I could have punched them.
I started pumping my own milk after every feeding and supplementing Gideon with that rather than donor milk. I had to switch from spoon-feeding to a bottle. I decided to skip the supplemental nursing system because I didn't want to lose a drop of my milk, and that system can get kinda drippy and messy. So I just crossed my fingers that bottle feeding wouldn't mess up the breastfeeding and figured that the priority was to keep giving him my milk and get us out of the the hospital.
He was also allowed to room-in with me on Saturday night for the first time. He was still hooked up to all sorts of monitors that went off if anything was amiss, but he was with me!
They checked his bili again Sunday morning. 18. I lost it. Had one of many breakdowns to come, sitting in the windowless room. I thought we'd never be allowed to leave. After hearing from nurses all day Saturday that surely we'd be discharged Sunday, whenever they tried to cheer me up by saying, "Just one more day" or "You'll go home tomorrow," I asked them to please stop saying that.
They decided to just keep him on the bili blanket and check it again in the evening. Since my milk was in, they wanted to see what would happen.
Snuggling with mom, with the glowing blanket.
I drew myself a window on the dry erase board.
Jonathan came to visit for a bit on Saturday and on Sunday.
Finally, after proving to them that we had a doctor's appointment scheduled for Gideon the next day, and passing the carseat challenge (I let them give him a paci for that since he was just screaming and I couldn't help him), and watching the videos... we got a copy of our discharge papers! Jonathan went to get the car while I waited with the nurse who would have to wheel Gideon out in his bassinet (hospital policy that you can't walk out of the NICU holding a baby in your arms). I read the discharge papers, which boiled down to:
Reason for admittance to NICU: Transiet Tachypnea of the Newborn
Treatment for primary diagnosis: none (spontaneously resolved)
Secondary diagnosis: Hyperbilirubinemia (Jaundice)
Treatment for secondary diagnosis: phototherapy to be continued at home
I wonder how many thousands of dollars it is going to cost us to have had a baby in the NICU for five days.
So, things did not go at all according to experience (I can't say plan because I didn't necessarily have a plan) after Gideon arrived. I felt really trapped in the NICU. I thought it would be an interesting experiment in iatrogenic PPD - let's stick a new mom in a tiny windowless room, alone, and let her know that she can't leave at all because her baby will be unattended so she has to just wait for nurses and docs to come to her if she wants to know anything. Then let's tell her she should be happy anytime she cries - she should be happy because her baby is healthy and there are so many sick babies and families suffering here. It reminded me of the Rosenhan experiment. Except ours would be "On Being Well in Sick Places."
I was never upset about them treating Gideon for Jaundice. I don't think I explained myself well to the docs, because they seemed to think I was upset that he was being treated. I was upset because of how he got into the NICU in the first place, which I thought was pretty deceptive in how they told me he'd be there one night. I was upset with the whole cascade of events. I was (am) adapting to crazy hormone changes that follow birth and doing so primarily alone with NO WINDOWS (seriously people, windows are essential to well-being). I think the NICU has a place. Those doctors are skilled and can save babies who five or ten years ago would not have survived. But the NICU is not the place for a baby whose only issue is Jaundice.
Thankfully, we are home now. We'll head to the doctor in a bit to see what Gideon's levels are. I'll keep you posted.
Five hours after he was born, while the nurse was doing her normal check-ins on us in the Maternity Ward, she noticed that Gideon was breathing pretty fast. She wanted the docs to take a look. Jonathan was passed out, still trying to recover from his stomach bug, and I thought it would just be a quick once-over with the doctor so I asked Karissa, our doula, if she could go with Gideon and watch the docs do their check. After a while I decided to head out to see what was happening. I got to the nursery and saw Gideon in a warming bed with probably five doctors standing over him. I was still really cheerful. I couldn't hear anything they were saying because I was watching through the window, so I made up a conversation and Karissa and I just talked and watched them watching him.
Finally, they let me in and the docs talked to me. They told me that he was indeed breathing pretty fast and they wanted to make sure nothing was amiss, so they asked for a team from the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) to come up to have a listen and see what they thought. I was fine with that. The NICU team came up and agreed that his breathing was faster than ideal (he was taking about 120 breaths a minute at his max - ideally a newborn would take something like 60). They decided to do an x-ray of his lungs to see if there was fluid or anything. An x-ray guy came into the nursery with his big machine and did the x-ray right there. After a little bit, the docs said it looked like there was a little bit of fluid in his lungs and they wanted to take him down to the NICU just for the night to make sure he was okay. They said that they needed to have access to oxygen in case he needed it, and the Maternity nursery or rooms don't have that, so he'd have to be in the NICU.
I said okay. Sounded reasonable to me.
Then a NICU doctor asked me if my milk was in yet (about 6 hours after giving birth). I seriously thought she was joking and said no. She asked me if I was okay with supplementing Gideon with formula and I said absolutely not but that if he had to be supplemented, they could use donor breastmilk. In retrospect I guess it should have been a red flag that they were asking me these questions. I don't know - I was just a few hours past labor and trying to make decisions on my own that would be the best for Gideon. I asked if I could go with him to the NICU and they said they needed about an hour to "get everything set up" but that they would call when I could come down. They said Gideon had Transient Tachypnea of the Newborn (TTN), most likely because he was born so quickly that he didn't get time in the birth canal to squeeze all of the fluids out of his lungs. They said it usually resolves itself - any remaining fluid is absorbed into the body and no interventions are needed. But they wanted to be safe and keep an eye on him. Sounded reasonable.
I went back to the room, Karissa headed home, and I waited for the call. They didn't call. So I finally talked to my nurse and got someone to tell me how to get to the NICU. Jonathan couldn't come because he'd been sick and the NICU is not a good place to bring any lingering germs, so I was on my own. I had to sign out of the Maternity Ward, wear a sticker saying where I was going and for how long, and then get down there... I signed in at the NICU and they showed me how I was supposed to wash my hands up the elbows at a big sink, and then how to find Pod E, where Gideon was in bed space 35.
He was on a big warming bed with so many wires connected to him. I could see at least 6 little dots on his hands and arms from where they'd tried to place IVs and I felt awful for him. His blood pressure, oxygen saturation, heart rate, and all kinds of other stuff was being monitored and alarms would go off anytime something was to high or too low. The nurse told me that he had an IV giving him fluids and dextrose, and giving him doses of antibiotics. I was surprised and a little bit confused because I really didn't know they would be doing that. I thought they told me he was just going to the NICU for monitoring overnight. For a transient condition. Now here he was all wired up. He also had a pacifier in his mouth. So they were giving him sugar water and a pacifier - fantastic ways to undermine successful breastfeeding. I was really surprised because in L&D and the Maternity Ward, they pride themselves on the hospital's recent "Baby Friendly" designation and they would never give a baby a pacifier or do anything to hurt breastfeeding, but I quickly learned that the rules are out the window in the NICU. I had the nurse make a sign for his bed saying "No Pacis Please."
The docs told me that as a precaution they were also giving Gideon 48 hours of antibiotics through his IV. I didn't think too much of that - I was fine with it. But it would turn out to be important later.
I went back up to the room and asked the nurse to call when Gideon woke up so I could go down to nurse him. I told Jonathan everything about the NICU and we just hung out in the room. That night I either waited for the NICU nurse to call or I set an alarm and got up on my own to go down and try to nurse him at least every 3 hours. I would have to sign out of Maternity, scrub in to the NICU, go get him and try to manage all the cords and alarms and see if he would eat. He wasn't too interested, seeing as how he was getting sugar from his IV. It was frustrating.
The next morning, Thursday, the nurse and doctors explained that Gideon's breathing was fine. He never needed oxygen and he was breathing room air and his Tachypnea was under control (breathing rate was normal). I thought that meant he could come back up to our room on the Maternity Ward. But they said no because he still had to get his antibiotic treatments through is IV, and they don't do that on the Maternity Ward.
I was not happy. I kept it together but I'm pretty sure breakdown #1 came the moment I walked back into our room in Maternity and explained everything to Jonathan. They were keeping Gideon in the NICU and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt like he was in the NICU for no good reason at this point, and I felt like I'd been lied to when they said they just wanted to monitor him overnight. Why would they say that if they knew they were going to give him an IV and anitbiotics and that doing so would tether him to the NICU?
All day Thursday I was back and forth from Maternity to the NICU. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, but the nurses and docs needed to check me too, to make sure everything was okay after delivery. There was birth certificate paperwork to do and all kinds of little stuff up on Maternity. I had to eat when they brought meals to Maternity - I would eat as fast as possible and then go down to try to get more time and nursing established with Gideon. Back and forth all day and all night. At some point Jonathan came down too, since he'd been symptom free for 24 hours. It was nice when he could be there with us. Thursday night, or early Friday morning technically, I had asked for a reclining chair so I could hold Gideon skin-to-skin. I laid back and held him there and started to fall asleep and the nurse quickly informed me that I was not allowed to sleep in the NICU. I was so exhausted. I willed myself to stay awake, looking around the room, doing whatever I could to stay up so that I could be with Gideon. I started to really resent that he was there in the NICU with all of these rules and all of these interventions. They're great for babies who need them, but I had a healthy full-term baby who was trapped in this crazy place with all these rules.
So, Friday came. Gideon's last dose of antibiotics was at 6 AM and I expected that he'd be allowed to go up to Maternity at that point. We had to wait for the docs to do their morning rounds to decide. They said that his dosages were done, but they still wanted to watch him in case there was some kind of infection and they needed 48 hours to be able to tell - that would be 6:30 PM when the 48 hours were up. They finally backed off on the dextrose and then they took out the IV, and I was really thankful for that. They kept asking if my milk was in yet (less than 48 hours after delivery) and they seemed unhappy about how nursing was going. I had a lactation consultant there every single time we tried to nurse and I thought Gideon was really doing great. He latched on and sucked - I just didn't have a whole lot to give (which is NORMAL) and the docs seemed to want him to be drinking ounces and ounces by now. I began to suspect they were quite uninformed about the normal course of lactation and how successful breastfeeding works. With the exception of one NICU nurse we had who was herself a lactation consultant, the nurses and doctors in the NICU confirmed my suspicions in this are repeatedly. It was unbelievably frustrating.
Dr. Nervous and the attending, Dr. Neutz (who caught Gideon) were on Maternity for rounds that morning and I knew he could clearly see that I'd been crying. He talked to me about Post-Partum Depression (PPD). When he left, I told Jonathan that I had zero bad thoughts toward Gideon or myself or anyone but the NICU doctors, really. No, I didn't want to hurt my baby. But there were some docs who might want to watch their backs. ;)
So it was Friday, and I was discharged from the hospital. We tried to keep our Maternity Ward room but the docs said there was no wiggle room - you get two midnights after you deliver and then you're out (with a normal vaginal delivery). The NICU nurses said that we could stay in a sleeping room in the NICU and they signed us up for the room for the night. Gideon wasn't being discharged because his 48 hour bilirubin count came back significantly elevated from his 24 hour count (24 hours was 9, 48 was 14). They put him on phototherapy with a Bili Blanket (like a tanning bed type of light to help him process the bilirubin).
So now Jaundice was the issue. The doctors told us that, had we been able to stay in Maternity, they would have sent Gideon back up to be in the room with us and under the Bili lights (just like Evelyn was while we were in the hospital with her). But, because I'd been discharged, they couldn't send Gideon upstairs so he had to stay in the NICU.
First he was in the NICU for a transient breathing problem that resolved itself without intervention. Then he was there for purely iatrogenic reasons - they made him have antibiotics and monitoring "just in case." Now he was there for a moderate-to-high Bili count (it's very concerning when the number is above 20).
Jonathan and I talked a lot and decided that he should go get Evelyn and head home with her. She'd been staying with my friend since Wednesday morning and we knew that she would probably want to be home with her dad if possible. I spent Friday night in the sleeping room, with the nurse calling me anytime Gideon made motions looking like he was hungry. My milk still wasn't in, which will still TOTALLY NORMAL seemed to be like the worst thing ever to any NICU doc who talked to me.
In the middle of the night, the fellow and a resident came in to the sleeping room and woke me up to let me know that they were concerned with Gideon's output in terms of poop and pee. He wasn't going enough. They said that since I was refusing formula, I had two options - give him 30 mL of donor breast milk at every feeding using a supplemental nursing system, or they would put a tube down his nose into his stomach and force-feed him. It was 2 AM. I was exhausted. I started to lose my cool and I said, "You will not be doing that. Absolutely not," when they mentioned the tube. I said fine, if it gets you off my back, I will stuff my baby as full of donor milk as I possibly can (I used the supplemental system and spoon-fed him because he didn't get all 30 mL down through the system). It's a lot to ask a not even 72 hours old infant to take in 30 mL at every feeding - that's about the max of their stomach capacity. But I tried to stuff him as much as I could. He was under additional lights (not just the blanket) now because his Bili had continued to go up when they checked it on Friday night.
They started checking his Bilirubin twice daily - at 6 AM and 6 PM. Here are his numbers and the interventions they decided to do:
24 hours of life (Thursday): 9
48 hours of life Friday AM): 14 (start bili blanket)
60 hours of life (Friday PM): 17 (start donor milk supplementation and additional phototherapy lights)
72 hours of life (Saturday AM): 14 (discontinue lights, continue blanket and donor milk)
Then, Saturday afternoon, my milk came in! Hooray! I celebrated by myself in my little windowless sleeping room. Then I called Jonathan who was really excited too. Then I told the nurse and some docs, who said, "Do you think you would really know when it came in?" and "Are you really sure?" I could have punched them.
I started pumping my own milk after every feeding and supplementing Gideon with that rather than donor milk. I had to switch from spoon-feeding to a bottle. I decided to skip the supplemental nursing system because I didn't want to lose a drop of my milk, and that system can get kinda drippy and messy. So I just crossed my fingers that bottle feeding wouldn't mess up the breastfeeding and figured that the priority was to keep giving him my milk and get us out of the the hospital.
He was also allowed to room-in with me on Saturday night for the first time. He was still hooked up to all sorts of monitors that went off if anything was amiss, but he was with me!
They checked his bili again Sunday morning. 18. I lost it. Had one of many breakdowns to come, sitting in the windowless room. I thought we'd never be allowed to leave. After hearing from nurses all day Saturday that surely we'd be discharged Sunday, whenever they tried to cheer me up by saying, "Just one more day" or "You'll go home tomorrow," I asked them to please stop saying that.
They decided to just keep him on the bili blanket and check it again in the evening. Since my milk was in, they wanted to see what would happen.
Snuggling with mom, with the glowing blanket.
I drew myself a window on the dry erase board.
Sunday night it was 18. I was losing hope. So frustrated.
Jonathan came to visit for a bit on Saturday and on Sunday.
Monday morning around 4 AM, the nurse drew blood for another Bili check. I wasn't feeling too optimistic. An hour later she came back to tell me the number: 18. I don't even think I cried that time. I just called Jonathan to let him know, and to say I didn't think they would let us go.
A couple hours later, a fellow (doctor speak for a doctor who is above the residents but below the attendings) came in and asked if I was ready to go home. I said, "That's up to you." She said that they were going to let us go, with a bili blanket to use at home. I don't even think I smiled. I was so tired and not really willing to believe it until I saw some discharge papers.
Jonathan dropped off Evelyn at school and got to the hospital in time for morning rounds. They had indeed decided to let my Gideon go and the resident was working on discharge papers. We had to follow all of the NICU discharge rules, which included me watching a couple hours' worth of videos all about the NICU and "how to care for your very premature baby" and other things that didn't apply to us at all. Then Gideon had to do a car seat challenge which involved strapping him into his carseat for as long as it would take us to drive home and monitoring all his vitals to make sure it wouldn't kill him I guess. They also made me do an online survey about my experience in the NICU before leaving. I thought that was funny - they might have gotten better responses had they let me go home and get my head together but instead they got some long rants from an incredibly sleep-deprived, unhappy yours truly.
A couple hours later, a fellow (doctor speak for a doctor who is above the residents but below the attendings) came in and asked if I was ready to go home. I said, "That's up to you." She said that they were going to let us go, with a bili blanket to use at home. I don't even think I smiled. I was so tired and not really willing to believe it until I saw some discharge papers.
Jonathan dropped off Evelyn at school and got to the hospital in time for morning rounds. They had indeed decided to let my Gideon go and the resident was working on discharge papers. We had to follow all of the NICU discharge rules, which included me watching a couple hours' worth of videos all about the NICU and "how to care for your very premature baby" and other things that didn't apply to us at all. Then Gideon had to do a car seat challenge which involved strapping him into his carseat for as long as it would take us to drive home and monitoring all his vitals to make sure it wouldn't kill him I guess. They also made me do an online survey about my experience in the NICU before leaving. I thought that was funny - they might have gotten better responses had they let me go home and get my head together but instead they got some long rants from an incredibly sleep-deprived, unhappy yours truly.
Finally, after proving to them that we had a doctor's appointment scheduled for Gideon the next day, and passing the carseat challenge (I let them give him a paci for that since he was just screaming and I couldn't help him), and watching the videos... we got a copy of our discharge papers! Jonathan went to get the car while I waited with the nurse who would have to wheel Gideon out in his bassinet (hospital policy that you can't walk out of the NICU holding a baby in your arms). I read the discharge papers, which boiled down to:
Reason for admittance to NICU: Transiet Tachypnea of the Newborn
Treatment for primary diagnosis: none (spontaneously resolved)
Secondary diagnosis: Hyperbilirubinemia (Jaundice)
Treatment for secondary diagnosis: phototherapy to be continued at home
I wonder how many thousands of dollars it is going to cost us to have had a baby in the NICU for five days.
So, things did not go at all according to experience (I can't say plan because I didn't necessarily have a plan) after Gideon arrived. I felt really trapped in the NICU. I thought it would be an interesting experiment in iatrogenic PPD - let's stick a new mom in a tiny windowless room, alone, and let her know that she can't leave at all because her baby will be unattended so she has to just wait for nurses and docs to come to her if she wants to know anything. Then let's tell her she should be happy anytime she cries - she should be happy because her baby is healthy and there are so many sick babies and families suffering here. It reminded me of the Rosenhan experiment. Except ours would be "On Being Well in Sick Places."
I was never upset about them treating Gideon for Jaundice. I don't think I explained myself well to the docs, because they seemed to think I was upset that he was being treated. I was upset because of how he got into the NICU in the first place, which I thought was pretty deceptive in how they told me he'd be there one night. I was upset with the whole cascade of events. I was (am) adapting to crazy hormone changes that follow birth and doing so primarily alone with NO WINDOWS (seriously people, windows are essential to well-being). I think the NICU has a place. Those doctors are skilled and can save babies who five or ten years ago would not have survived. But the NICU is not the place for a baby whose only issue is Jaundice.
Thankfully, we are home now. We'll head to the doctor in a bit to see what Gideon's levels are. I'll keep you posted.
Comments
I know how horrendous a hospital stay is (both my girls actually ended up in the hospital at 2 days old, unbelievably). It seriously messes with your head!
Good luck to you. And congrats.