Wrote this in Kamloops but today is actually June 12. Avery’s real due date. She’s 5 weeks old! I’ll do my best to blog, but computer time is limited. That nd sleep time too. Twitter ends up being my my microblogging world for now. Yay for status updates. Anyways here you go… 

Part 2 in the NICU (Nick-you)

Well I think it’s time to write the next part of our epic saga. Morgan headed back to huncity to look after Emily. It was just getting to be too long of a stay away for her. She really needed her Daddy. So now I have some extra time to kill. Time to blog I guess.

Day 1 began at 6 am. I finally got to go down to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) and see my daughter. I let them get her settled after our flight before I went down. Normally I can’t pull all nighters, but I managed just fine. Endorphin rush? Adrenaline rush? Either way I was wide awake. I first spent some time getting reacquainted with an old enemy of mine, the evil machine which allows babies to get breast milk without actually nursing AKA the Breast Pump. We shall from here on refer to it as “the machine.” Again I apologize for the over share, but mostly my readers are girls anyways. If you didn’t know, “the machine” and I first hated each other for about 6 months after Emily was born. I swore we’d never speak again, but sometimes you have to sacrifice ALOT for your kids.

When I first saw her in Kamloops she was in an isolette, with wires everywhere. It was like I’d given birth to Darth Vader child. She had tubes in her nose with a big hose going to a machine that was almost as big as her bed (CPAP). She had IV’s in each hand and sensors to keep checking her heart rate and respiratory rate.  She had a tube in her mouth for feeding. She had a sensor on her foot to keep checking her Oxygen level. And she had 7 cuts on her other foot from blood work and blood tests. There wasn’t much to see.

She was hard to even look at like that. It was really making me emotional. I thought that because I’d been through that before, I’d be better prepared. I don’t think I was. I wasn’t as worried about the outcome, but it still made things way harder.

She made very little change for about a week. She kept having her Oxygen levels drop, and with them my heart.  Every time I had to leave the NICU, I felt like I was being torn away again. Having a baby is really not supposed to be like that. I couldn’t even hold her for a couple days. She was too upset. Even changing her diaper would make her Oxygen levels drop. She would get so angry. The nurses kept saying she had quite the temper, but I figured I would too with a tornado up my nose.

She dropped 6 oz’s in the first week; the most after she had her IV’s taken out once the antibiotics were finished. On Friday she had the CPAP removed, IV taken out and she was moved to a little cot instead of the isolette. It was a BIG day for her. I thought that maybe we’d turned a corner and we’d be going home, but not yet. She was left with the sensors and her feeding tube. She still was way too sleepy to eat on her own.

At the end of the first week we finally got to try nursing Avery. It was a very special moment because it was the first time I felt like I’d actually had a baby and that I would eventually get to take her home. She nursed very well. I didn’t know how she would do after a week without nursing. The stuff you read suggests that if you don’t nurse in the first hour, it will be really hard to nurse after that. Well 1 week baby yeah! She did great, and has continued to do so.

Another week goes by with very little progress. She is still to sleepy to eat on her own, but she is finally gaining weight and even beat her birth weight after only 2 weeks. The second weekend was probably the hardest. We had a nurse on day shift who was the worst nurse ever.  She kept grabbing me and trying to force Avery to nurse roughly. I was doing my very best not to cry at how rough she was being with Avery. Avery and I have figured this nursing thing out pretty well. Not prefect by any means, but not bad. The nurse was making Avery mad and then saying how bad she was at nursing. She left for a minute, and it was everything I would do not to cry and scream at the same time. I’m glad Morgan was there or I would have lost it. I was ready to quite breast feeding right then and there! I did something uber brave, and I stood up to her. I told her “I don’t feel comfortable with your “hands on” help”” She said “I know but I want you to do well”. Not sorry, not ok I’ll let you do it. But from that point on things got a bit better. She stopped grabbing me and explained things instead. Things I already knew! Anyways. I was a pretty hard transition from nurses that let us do everything including feed her through her tube, to a nurse that wouldn’t even let me hold my own body. Awkward??  Yes! 

Today is the 27^th. Avery weight 6 lbs 4 oz. She’s grown oodles and has finally started eating full meals without getting to sleepy. They took her feeling tube out today, which means that we might go home in 2 or 3 more days. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much, but I think I have already. I can’t wait to bring her home. She still has to pass her car seat test, so I’ve been helping her study. I keep reminding her “rear facing is always the answer.” The nurses said they might put us up on the pediatric floor for care by parent. That’s just like what normal babies get before they are discharged from the hospital after birth. If they do that, we’ll be headed home in no time.

I can’t wait to bring her into her room. To watch TV with her at 4 am. To sit with her on the Deck. To introduce her to all my friends and Church family. I can’t wait to see how Emily really does with her around and to just be around Emily again. I can’t wait to cuddle until I feel like putting her down. I can’t wait to kiss her a million times with no wires attached. I can’t wait to bring her home. Soon.