Our Stay at the Children's Hospital

I'd heard of 'hospital-itis' but until you have a case of it yourself it's hard to understand how bad it is!  

After Hazel was born (as in the next day) she had the surgery to repair her back.  When a SB surgery is referred to as a repair it means that they are closing the skin on the back to prevent infection, but they can't really repair the damage done to the nervous system.  Anyway, her particular repair was very, very tight as the legion was very high and very large.  When she was born we were expecting to be there 5-7 days,  but the surgeon required her to be on her stomach for 14 days after the repair.  She couldn't be moved and we couldn't hold her because the wound was so delicate and precarious (photo here, scroll all the way down).  It was at this point that the hospital-itis started to settle in...

It is so unimaginable for a mom to not be with her child. ( I just don't want to bore you with how this experience affected me so feel free to exit now if need be...this could go on for a while)

They took Hazel to the Children's Hospital right after she was born so that left me on the mother and baby floor with no baby.  It was so hard--However, I was so grateful that someone who knew what they were doing was helping her in a way that I absolutely couldn't.  But you feel that deep desire to be with your baby, so there was a hole in my heart.  I also felt so far from the big girls at home, it was like being torn in two and I was heartbroken.

On the 2nd day they finally let me go see her in the NICU. (Now if you want to feel grateful for all that the Good Lord has given you take a stroll thru the NICU.  After 3 weeks in there we were happy to leave with:  1) with a living baby  2) with the problem we had.)  It was a really strange experience to have someone say: "This is your baby" as if they are introducing you.  It is odd to see someone else as the primary caregiver to your baby but that is what a NICU nurse does.  They stay with the baby 24/7 and tend to all their needs.

Hazel's wound from the repair on her back is 5 inches long (the legion was 4cm long by 2.5 cm wide) and that looks huge on a 4.5 lb baby, so seeing her for the first time with that huge wound on her back was really hard for me.  A lot of crying goes on in the NICU and I was a great contributor.

Anyway, I stayed in the hospital for 4 days and when they finally let me out I settled into the daily routine of sitting in the NICU with Hazel and waiting for the day someone said I could hold her...

Each day in the NICU is like a time warp.  You get there in the morning and hope you made it in early enough for rounds where a team of 5-7 people come around and give each other the scoop on the patients.  If you are lucky the attending Dr will be there and let you know the care plan for that day.  Every day all the parents ask when they can take their baby home and each day they give you some variation of  'we can't commit to anything yet'.   It is so aggregating!  You just want to cry because it's so frustrating being there without the end of the tunnel in sight.

The many meds that they gave Hazel were mostly for pain and to keep her sedated.  The main one they gave her was to make her forget everything that happened.  I was so glad for that!  Everyone kept telling us to go home and not to worry about staying each day but I just couldn't do it.  The NICU is a ward where each room has about 4-6 kids in it so you are not sitting quietly in a private room.  You hear and see everything that is going on with each child, it's loud and busy.  They also keep the temp up and had Hazel under a heat lamp since she wasn't dressed or covered because of her wound--so it was always hot in there.  Since we still couldn't hold her we would just sit by her bed and touch her so she knew we were there.  I don't know if she did but it sure made me feel better.

Before you go in to the NICU you have to scrub up and 'delouse' yourself.  They have this room for washing up and I have to admit that whole process made me into a bit of a germ-a-phobe! The smell of hand sanitizer will forever remind me of our weeks in the hospital with Hazel. Even now at home I find myself realizing how easily things are passed around.

Even though for the first two weeks I couldn't hold Hazel I still really wanted her to have breast milk and I wanted to try and nurse her when she was far enough along in her recovery.  I spent many, many hours with the breast pump.  It actually went well and I built up quite a supply in the freezer that we took home with us.  While Hazel was on her tummy for those 2 weeks she got some food from an IV but also took a bottle!  It was pretty amazing and everyone was surprised that she did that and seemed not to mind.  We were so pleased that she seemed to be adapting to her situation.  She wasn't gaining weight they way they wanted her to though and so that was a little bit of a concern at that point.