The NICU continued...
The day that Amina was born was SUCH a long day. Neither Justin nor I had slept for almost a full 24 hours. We both got little cat naps here and there but nothing substantial. But we were so excited to meet our little girl that we didn't really care all that much, but not sleeping takes a toll on your body and your mood. When Amina was first put on the antibiotics, we were under the impression that she would only have to be on them for 3 days and then we would be able to take her home. So, the third day of antibiotics rolls around and we asked her nurse when we were going to be able to take her home. (Thinking that we were going to be able to take her home that night or early the next morning.) Because I was supposed to be discharged that day and we needed to know if we needed to get a hotel or what-not. So, we asked her nurse and she informed us that there was no way we were going to be able to take her home because she was relying on an IV machine to give her the nutrients that she wasn't getting from the breast milk because my milk hadn't come in yet. And she explained to us that she would have to be weaned off of the machine so it wasn't exactly a fast process. I was SO upset. I couldn't stop myself from crying. I was so mad and upset and confused and full of so many other emotions that I couldn't help myself. The poor nurse felt so bad, she had just gotten there for her shift and then dropped that awful bomb on us. Which to us felt like it came completely out of left field. We were so upset. We felt like we were being over looked because nobody felt the need to tell us why we had to stay or why we couldn't take our baby home. They all just assumed that we knew what was going on and we weren't told anything. So anyway, we decided to go back to room to figure stuff out. We were talking about getting a hotel but my sweet doctor had told the nurses not to discharge me just yet because my baby was still in the hospital, so I got to stay for one more night. The next day we pretty much spent the entire day in the NICU. The only time either Justin or I weren't in the NICU was because one of my family members was in with one of us or because we were in the restroom or eating. I was not going to let our baby girl out of our sight, and one of us was going to be in the room when the doctor came in so we could get some answers! That night after my family headed back to Tehachapi, Justin and I asked one of the nurses when the doctor was going to be in and if we could talk to him about our daughter. The nurse said that he was going to be in later that night but he doesn't like talking to parents of his patients. --I'm sorry?! What?! He doesn't like talking to parents!? Are you kidding me? He works on babies! He certainly can't inform the babies about what is going on! It is his job to talk to parents! We were less than amused. So when he did finally come in, we demanded to talk to him. He told us that Amina's body was having a hard time producing white blood cells and that is why we aren't able to take her home with us. Because if she were to contract some kind of infection at home then her body wouldn't have any way to fight it off. He said that if she didn't start producing white blood cells within the next few days then he wanted to send her to some kind of specialist in LA. He told me that I needed to continue pumping and trying to breastfeed her because the breast milk is the best way for babies to get the nutrients they need for their bodies to function properly. Cue emotional breakdown number 2 for Shaye. I just couldn't control myself. I thought for sure that this was all my fault. I was the one that got her sick in the first place, I was the one that couldn't produce enough milk to nourish her so that she could get better. It was all my fault. And no matter what anyone told me, whether it was Justin or a nurse there was no convincing me otherwise. I was to blame. So that night I decided that I was going to do my best to pump every 4 hours at night and breastfeed her every 3 hours during the day. Thankfully my milk started coming in and so pumping wasn't quite as frustrating as before.
During this time Justin and I decided that we were going to try out a bunch of different hotels because we had to stay in Bakersfield anyway, we so found a little cluster of hotels in town and stayed at a different one every night. (And because we learned that you can get a discount at Marriott hotels if you are a government employee and we weren't staying in a Marriott at the time.) We figured we might as well make the best of it and we enjoy staying in hotels.
On Saturday night we were lucky enough to get to talk to the doctor for a few minutes about Amina's progress. He told us that her white blood cell count wasn't as high as he would like so he wanted to run another Complete Blood Count (CBC) test again in the morning but her numbers were looking better than the day before so he was feeling hopeful.
On Sunday morning my parents made the trek to Bakersfield earlier than usual so my dad and Justin could give our sweet baby a blessing. I was afraid that the NICU staff wasn't going to let me stay in the room for the blessing because you could only have 2 people in with her at a time but luckily for us this was a Christian hospital so they allowed me to stay. The blessing was beautiful and I cried the whole time. Later that day the doctor came in and told us that Amina's WBC count had dropped incredibly low. We were devastated. We had no idea how long she was going to have to stay now. But we assumed at least another 2 or 3 days. And of course I broke down again. (It was a very full week of crying for me.) After a while we decided that we should head back to our hotel to get some sleep so we could be back at the hospital first thing in the morning.
On Saturday night we were lucky enough to get to talk to the doctor for a few minutes about Amina's progress. He told us that her white blood cell count wasn't as high as he would like so he wanted to run another Complete Blood Count (CBC) test again in the morning but her numbers were looking better than the day before so he was feeling hopeful.
On Sunday morning my parents made the trek to Bakersfield earlier than usual so my dad and Justin could give our sweet baby a blessing. I was afraid that the NICU staff wasn't going to let me stay in the room for the blessing because you could only have 2 people in with her at a time but luckily for us this was a Christian hospital so they allowed me to stay. The blessing was beautiful and I cried the whole time. Later that day the doctor came in and told us that Amina's WBC count had dropped incredibly low. We were devastated. We had no idea how long she was going to have to stay now. But we assumed at least another 2 or 3 days. And of course I broke down again. (It was a very full week of crying for me.) After a while we decided that we should head back to our hotel to get some sleep so we could be back at the hospital first thing in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment