NICU Day Five

Filed Under Breastfeeding, Difficult Stuff, Grandparents, NICU, Newborn- Taylor | 1 Comment

On Monday morning, I called the hospital first thing when I woke up. They told me Taylor had passed his carseat test and done so well during the night. Jonathon had planned to come up to the hospital with me, so my mom came over early to watch Bailey and we got up there in time for his first feeding.

While he was eating, our nurse, Katrena, came over and told us that he would be able to go home by early evening. He was scheduled for pictures, then his circumcision (no debating here, thanks) would be done on my OB’s lunch hour, then after they observed him and made sure he was peeing okay he would be released.

We went and got his pictures done. As with typical newborn pictures, they are just okay. Of course his eyes aren’t focused and he’s kind of a lump, but he looks cute anyway. Not posting them on here yet because I haven’t decided which picture to use for birth announcements.

After his pictures, Jonathon and I went to the breastfeeding room so I could pump. When we came back to the NICU and were waiting to be let in, Jonathon was like, “I hear Taylor crying!” I kept saying no, that’s not him, blah blah blah. They let us in and I saw the nurses putting him under a blue light, wearing only a diaper. My first thought was, “Why is he going under there, I hope they know he is leaving soon!” We walked up and the nurse looked at me and then I just knew and started crying.

She kept saying, “We’re so sorry! We wanted to get him settled and calm before we called you back in.” The neonatologist had decided to get one last check on his bilirubin levels and they came back way too high. She said it was good that it happened while he was still in the hospital, because if his numbers had spiked like this after he went home he would have been admitted back into the hospital. Basically he was jaundiced, which made sense because I kept thinking he looked more yellowish. They said he would probably need a few days of phototherapy. The light breaks down the bilirubin in the blood when the liver is not yet working properly.

Here is Taylor in his “tanning bed” complete with sunglasses velcroed around his head.

I guess here I should admit that I completely lost it when they told me he wouldn’t be going home after all. This whole experience was such a roller coaster ride. To be told that morning he was leaving, and then hours later to be told that he was staying days later… it was just more than I could handle. Someday I will write more about what it’s actually like to have a child in the hospital. Right now I’m still alternating between processing and pushing it out of my head. Oh and I’m going on little sleep too, so my posts aren’t so eloquent right now!

Jonathon and I took a break and went out for lunch, and went up to his work to pick up some gifts and visit and share pictures of Taylor. We went back to the hospital for another feeding, then went home for dinner. My mom offered to come back up to the hospital with me after dinner. That evening, there was a girl I knew from church working in the NICU. She was assigned to transport but shifted things around and ended up being Taylor’s nurse for overnight. It was so good to talk to someone familiar. She also said that honestly she didn’t think he would go home until at least Wednesday or Thursday.

Comments