Moved to the NICU

Filed Under Birth- Taylor, Difficult Stuff, Doctor Stuff, NICU, Newborn- Taylor | 2 Comments

About a half hour after Taylor was born, he started making little grumbly noises. You know how babies grunt and grumble when they’re itty bitty? We thought that’s what he was doing. Just before we got ready to move to our new room in Mom and Baby, the nurse started seeming a little concerned about him. She mentioned that she would check on him again in a few minutes. When she checked back, she said she would like the house pediatrician to come see him.

We moved to our other room, and Bailey and Grammy and Grandpa came to visit. After they had been there for about ten minutes the pediatrician came in. She checked Taylor over for about five minutes and then told me that she would be taking him down to the Special Care nursery (nice way to say NICU, lol) to run some tests. I was a little nervous at this point- all kinds of things flash through your head, from heart problems (I had a CHD) to cystic fibrosis to collapsed lung to tumors. Seriously. She said they would let me know when I could come see him, that it would be an hour or so.

I need to get his full medical charts from the hospital just to satisfy my own curiosity. I know some of the tests they did included CT Scan, x rays, and lots of bloodwork. The neonatologist, who was one of the nicest ladies ever, came down to my room to discuss the results. She sat down next to my bed and that’s when I really panicked. But the news wasn’t too bad. She told me he had been diagnosed with transient tachypnea which was basically temporary rapid breathing. They thought it was caused by two things: Immature lungs since he was two days shy of being a preemie, and fluid in his lungs. During a normal labor and delivery, the baby spends time in the birth canal, which compresses their lungs and helps remove the fluid. With such a quick birth, Taylor didn’t get much time in the birth canal! She said this condition is more common with c-section babies.

She also told me they would be starting him on an antibiotic just to be on the safe side. I believe he got both ampicillin and gentamyacin twice a day through his IV. She said his blood count was “borderline” for infection and they would re-evaluate after 48 hours and either take him off the IV or run a full seven day course. So we knew he had a minimum two day stay in the NICU. I was so disappointed that he would not be a “normal” baby at the hospital. I wouldn’t be able to hold him whenever I wanted, and keep him in my room during the day, and have visitors come see him. It’s funny how much that can throw off your whole experience with a newborn, when it’s not how you expected it to be. Especially after having a first child with no complications and a normal hospital stay.

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for going down to the NICU that afternoon and seeing my little guy look like this.

I wasn’t able to hold him for a few more hours. At this point he was on a CPAP and they said as long as he was doing well on that he would not need to be intubated. The tube in his mouth was a feeding tube but they were actually using it to release the pressure from his belly. Since the CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) forces air in, they said it would give him gas unless they helped remove it. The leads on his chest were for his heartrate and respiration rate monitors. The duck was for temperature control, since he was under a warmer. His whole right arm was wrapped so that he couldn’t pull his IV out of his hand. He was getting fluids through the IV most of the day and then the antibiotics just twice a day. His foot had a pulse ox monitor. At first his oxygen saturation levels were around 85-90% I think, whereas ideal is 99/100.

It is so hard to not just stare at the monitors all the time. There is constant beeping and then just watch the numbers skyrocket or drop. In his case, typically his RR would go way high (what should have been 25-40 would shoot up to 80+) and his oxygen sats would drop to the 80s. Sometimes the nurses would rush over and adjust him, other times they would just poke a button on the monitor and tell me not to worry about it. They kept saying, “Don’t watch the monitors, watch your baby. You can tell how he is doing by watching him.”

I think that first day, I got to hold him once in the afternoon, and once in the evening when my mom came up. He was not allowed to be held by anyone other than me or Jonathon because he was “too sick” which was heartbreaking to hear.

I went down to see him one last time before bed, and I just stood next to his crib and cried.

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