Thursday, October 3, 2013

Things quickly change

       The day Lucas was born was by far the best day of my life. It quickly changed to the scariest. He was born at 10:29 AM and around 3:00 PM he was taken away by nurses for a quick bath. Harmless right? Well, he never got that bath. They unswaddled him and realized he was lethargic and cold. They did a heal prick and quickly discovered he had very low blood sugar. The nurse came back to tell me what was going on and within minutes he was carted off to the NICU. I was told he would be down there for an hour for observation and I should take this time to rest. I was so nervous but was under the impression that it wasn't that bad and he would be back in my arms shortly. So I tried to rest and not think about it too much. I had lots of family there and so we all kind of sat around talking and it was a good distraction for me. Then I realized a few hours had passed and I had not been told anything. My nurse came in to check on me and I asked if she knew anything and she again assured me he was just under observation. What did this even mean?! I was starting to get really scared because I loved my nurse and felt comfortable with her and her shift was almost over and a new girl was coming in. A new girl who had never even met Lucas so how was she supposed to know what was going on? Well, the time had come for my amzing nurse to leave and she promised me multiple times my new nurse was amazing and will be just as great if not better than she was (this was false by the way).
      He was in the NICU for almost 10 hours and it was the hardest 11 hours of my life. I had only had him earlier that morning and then he was taken. I finally decided to ask a nurse what was going on and she said that he was not admitted to the NICU and that I could go see him. This infuriated me for two reasons. 1. I had been told I was not allowed to visit him in observation and I would only be allowed to go see him once he was admitted. But of course no mother wants to have there newborn admitted into the NICU because that means something is wrong. And 2. He had been in the NICU for 7 hours before I was told I was in fact actually allowed to go see my baby. I was so mad I had gone that long with out seeing him. Once I made the very painful walk down to the NICU I was again over come with disappointment. I was so upset that I didnt even want to hold my new baby. And that was a horrible feeling. I was told a few things while down there that upset me. He was being given formula, he had an IV, and they didn't even know his name!! I was not upset that he was eating formula I understood it was needed, same with the IV, but I was upset that not once did any nurse in that place decide to call up and tell me what was going on. I was mad they didn't know his name, he was only baby Green. Didn't even have the name spelled right and the room number on his cart was incorrect. I just didn't understand how a hospital can not have the details down correctly. Looking back I'm sure I was upset over silly things but by that point I hadn't slept in days, my baby wasn't allowed to be with me and I was scared to death. I did go back to my room and get some sleep. Lucas was brought to me around 1:30 AM and immediately screamed because of a dirty diaper... and that's the 1st time I got peed on by my son. And I have never been so happy to be peed on. I gave him a fresh diaper and cuddled him tightly for a few hours while he slept. And in just a change of a diaper that day became the best day of my life again.

    He still needed to be watched over for his blood sugar levels and he was supplemented formula for the first week of his life. But he is now a very healthy exclusively breast fed baby :-)  More on breast feeding to come I'm sure. I love being a breast feeding mommy! It is an amazing feeling to be able to feed my baby that way.

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