Ticket Tuesday
NICU 16
Day 38 - 43
Gestation 28 - 29 weeks
Lee did the morning shift and gave me the report on Kayden. He is doing and his temperature has come down.
When I came in the afternoon he had a long line in and his belly was looking much better. He was saturating well around 30% oxygen and got weight on the big boy scales 798grams.
I’m feeling better today.
He will be getting his milk back 1ml at a time bolus feeds with no fortifier every 4 hours for the next 24 hours then every 2hours. Each time he tolerates a feed, he earns another ml, it’s very slow. He will stay on the IV fluids and antibiotics until his feeds are up to 180ml/kg.
We have a long cuddle and he did a few desats on me.
The surgical team came to check his belly and cleared him. It’s a huge relief. No one wants to do bowel bypass surgery on a 798gram baby. It makes it clear why they threw the everything in at the first sign of a NEC infection.
Day 40 and he gets a huge weight gain. I didn’t believe Lee when he called me. 865 grams! What no way! He’s still only on 1ml/2hrs, I guess that the lipids working.
When I came in the afternoon we had our cuddle and he was still having desats on me. He managed to self correct them so he didn’t get any red marks. It’s very hard when he is on you not to intervene right away. It’s hard to give him the chance to wake up and take catch up breathes when all the alarms are going off.
He’s is up to 3ml/2hr feeds EBM and he feels heaps bigger. He officially does not fit inside my tank top. His legs are too squished and his head is right under my chin. A bittersweet moment because we have to change our cuddle style but so happy that he is finally gaining weight.
The next morning Lee reports another weight gain, he always seem to get the weight ins. He is a whooping 970grams! I knew he was bigger when he didn’t fit in my shirt. And he is up to 5ml/2hr.
He will be due his 6 week vaccines; Rotarix, infanrix hexa and synflorix. I’m feeling cautious, he is so small and I’m thinking back to Sylvie. When she had her first few vaccinations she got really bad fevers. I don’t think Kayden could cope as well because of his size, I wish he was over 2kg. Also he is still getting over this NEC scare, not up to his regular feeds, still has a line in and a touch of edema.
I had a chat to the doctors about it and it went super smoothly. They agree it’s best to do one thing at a time. He should be back to normal feeds in 4 days and the line will come out then to. She confirmed a few days won’t matter and that the smaller babies tend to have no reactions to the vaccines so they have charted them for Monday.
I left pretty late at night. I got to the exit inserted my ticket and nothing. Huh? I tried again. It’s Tuesday and I forgot to pick up my new ticket. Honestly, I rarely know what day it is. I know the days numerically because I mark my milk but there is no difference between a Monday or Saturday with NICU and lockdown. Anyways on Tuesdays I have to pick up a new parking ticket and I forgot.
I asked the attendant who was sitting by the exit if he could please let me out. I explained Im here everyday, I have all the paperwork in my car I can show, I simply forgot my ticket today.
Nope. He makes the cars behind me reverse so I can reverse out like a fool and repark. I’m not going in, all the down the longest corridor and up to level 9, I don’t have the energy. So I went to the ticket booth for the car park and explain the same to another guy. He says very simply oh just ring the intercom and I’ll let you out. Ummm why didn’t the guy sitting there tell me that! Fek sake as Julie would say it.
I had a break down.
I can’t believe after everything I was cracked by a parking attendant. Let’s be clear the reason why I broke and what snapped the line are two different things.
I have to be here everyday, I don’t want to be here everyday. It’s hard to go everyday, leaving my baby behind, I don’t want to but I have to. And now I can’t even do the thing I don’t want to do.
Ahhhhhh! Yup I screamed in the car.