No Cuddles for 3 Days
NICU 11
Look at that tiny leg
Day 17 - 19
Gestation 25 weeks
It’s retained placenta. Is it taboo to swear in a baby blog? Cause fucking great another thing on my plate.
I’m now hanging around between NICU and Women’s Assessment Unit (WAU) getting loaded with antibiotics stuck NIL by mouth waiting to find out if I’ll be getting a d&c today.
Just after lunch I get called back to WAU and the doctor explains the scan findings. It is borderline and I get the choice. I could do the d&c today and risk puncturing my uterus. Or I could go home with oral antibiotics and hopefully it’ll self resolve in 1-2 weeks. I was given this option because Im here everyday, I can come back for help easily if needed. I’ve had enough surgeries and poking for the year or a lifetime so I opt to go home and left with no cuddles again today.
Day 18, the nurse calls in the morning, they want to try to extubate Kayden again. I’m just dropping Sylvie at Auntie Mels and will be on my way.
I get in and he in on cpap at 50% oxygen. The doctors say he handled the transition really well but it’ll be a big day for him so again no cuddles.
3 hours in and he is having a few Brady’s and dsats, about every ten minutes. They make the call to add NIPPV again and change his feeds to continuous. Instead of dropping a whole feed into the NG tube a machine now presses it slowly, drip by drip down the tube 10ml over 2hrs, every 2 hrs.
He lasts overnight with a few hours in 60% oxygen, he is still having Brady’s and dsats. These are common, to explain further, prems usually have bradycardias, desaturations , tachycardia and apnea’s on the daily. I had to get the nurse to explain the difference to me, I’ll let you google them if you want to go further. Basically it’s changes to his heartrate and amount of oxygen in the blood. They preset the system to alarm at certain thresholds pending on the baby. In NICU, everything beeps all the time. You get used to the sounds and checking the monitors.
Lee and I always had this blanket rule of don’t panic unless the nurses panic. And if the nurses are panicking get the hell out of the way.
Kayden also has a distended abdomen and bad rash on his bum. He seems pretty settled though and I finally get my cuddles. Those on my Facebook would have read the post but for those that are not, it went like this:
It’s been an emotional three days with no cuddles and it’ll be day 4 today.
Kayden had a big day, then I got readmitted to hospital and then kayden having another two big days. This is his second try at being extubated off the ventilator, we just passed the 24hour mark.
I don’t even know how I’m going to cuddle him with everything that’s attached to him; two IV lines, heartrate, temperature and saturation monitors, continuous feeding NT tube, CPAP and NIPPV.
It takes two nurses to help me get him out the incubator. And once he’s on my chest I am scared still, I barely move so afraid of disconnecting a line.
I just want to be able to pick up and hold my baby.