I Hate it Here
NICU 23
Day 62
Gestation 32 weeks
We go in the morning together. I fought so hard yesterday that I feel numb and hopeless today. I made great points, I called everyone and it didn’t matter.
We’ve been told the transfer is coming at 130pm. At least we have one of our favourite nurses to ride in the ambulance. At level 4, only the nurse is allowed in with the driver. We say goodbye to all the nurses and everyone has signed Kaydens card. I say goodbye to some of the Mums too and we got Kayden a NICU graduation shirt. Although it feels more like being kicked out than graduating. We cleaned out the drawers and the frozen milk.
The ambulance driver has a familiar name which is comforting and I noticed the brand on the harness is called SKIP which is my dads nickname. These are good signs but we don’t want to go yet. We aren’t against a transfer, we just want to go to our hospital.
We have to say goodbye to Kayden at the patient elevators and go in our own car. I kept looking for the ambulance on the way and wondering if we were ahead or behind him.
It feels odd to leave, I wish we were going to the right place. I wanted to leave on better terms. NICU Auckland city is an amazing facility and they absolutely saved Kaydens life. We would have stayed if we could. We always knew we would transfer at some point but we always imagined it would be to North Shore hospital.
We aren’t even there yet and I’m put off. It’s the middle of the day level 4 lockdown and there are people getting drunk in a nearby park and then another group doing the same. I don’t like this suburb, it makes me feel unsafe.
We get through the main entrance and we are trying to find the right building, it’s all the way around the back and the parking is minimal. It’s so unfamiliar, I’m already unhappy.
They stop us at the building entrance and want us to complete a handwritten COVID sheet. We both find it odd they have everyone touching the same pen and clipboard. Kayden needs to get out of the rig and we want to stay with him, it’s a big deal to move. Our nurse explains so we can pass through and security says well it’s for COVID. Yeah we know it’s for COVID, we didn’t think it was a colouring competition. The nurse gets us through on the promise we come back to sign in.
We go through maternity to paediatrics; we’re confused. The special care baby unit is under construction, this is a temporary solution in the back of paediatrics. It’s dark and dank. They’ve attempted to uplift it with children’s art and posters but it looks dirty. I wonder when these hanging objects were last cleaned, if ever.
The nurses station is inside an open cupboard and there is stuff everywhere. Racks and trolleys of supplies shoved into any spot it will fit.
I’m so upset we were pushed here. I hold it in cause we have no choice and Kayden needs to get out of the rig. He is in a small room with one other baby. All the rooms are separate, there is no visibility for nurses to see what is happening across the unit. We are tucked away in a back corner. They weight him in at 1570grams. They have different headgear for the cpap which will give the sides of his head a break so that’s good. I am desperately trying to find an upside anywhere. They rotate six hourly between the pronges and the nose mask.
We leave him to settle from the big ride. I need to pump but the attachment is different so I asked for new pieces. One of the pieces she gave me was broken and other is stained yellowish, yuck.
The vibe is bad, I feel like nurses hate it here too. We get a tour and it just gets worse. Every station is a make shift solution that takes multiple trips to get something done. The lounge for lunch and dinner is also a storage space. It is filled with extra pumps, boxes of donated knitting piled up, a mattress behind an old blue couch and there is a dining chair you can’t use because it holds the door open. It’s a sad and depressing space.
We’re back in the room and Kayden has moved his NG tube during a feed and his heartrate is alarming tachycardic. We’ve told the nurse to fix it. Then he did it again and we had to call attention to it again. The NG tube needs to be properly placed in the stomach or it could be putting milk into his lungs. It’s frustrating that we had to call them in to fix it twice. If he is pinging red alarm because of his heartrate they should be checking him and would have seen the NG tube was pulled.
We have one car and Lee needs to get back so we have to go and then I can come back in my car. It was only seconds into hopping in the car and I broke down. I looked at lee and said I hate it here.
The fight to move is back on, we need to get him out of there. I’m back on the phone calling everyone and Lee is doing the same. There are no beds for Kayden at North shore or back in Auckland NICU. I need to head back.
Kayden is very tachycardic which is unlike him. He keeps alarming. There was a nurse in the room and I ask her to have a look. She tells me she’s going to sort the neighbour babys is nappy first. In my opinion an alarming tachycardic baby should be prioritised over a nappy change. I can see from my angle the nurses cupboard and there are two nurses there not moving. One is on her phone and the other is having a drink of water, they’re not even looking up at the monitors.
The nappy nurse comes over and I ask her why the other nurses didn’t come in to check. She said oh they knew I was in the room. But you were with another baby, I asked why don’t they check in to see if you need support? She repeats cause I am in here with sass.
Not much later and they are doing handover, two nurses are standing by the neighbour baby and Kayden has a major apnea. He hasn’t done one of these in ages. His heartrate and oxygen saturation plummetand multiple alarms are now going off blaring loudly and flashing red. And no one is coming to check him!
Now he is turning blue, like a dark cobalt color. I had to act. I lifted the incubator and I’m roughly rubbing him up the back, trying to bring him back. It’s something I have seen a NICU nurse do before. This time I yell, with anger and swearing.
I am fuming! I had already pointed out the lack of response when he was alarming before, this is not okay. What if I wasn’t there? I caused a full scene. I have never yelled at a nurse and should never but this was 100% warranted. I had communicated repeatedly that we needed help and the lack of response resulting in me resuscitating my 1.5kg baby. This is not okay, miles from.
They call the doctor to come and check Kayden. The doctor puts a line in and takes some blood for testing. He is now needing his flow increased and 33% oxygen, his highest in a long time. They also order an X-ray to check his distended abdomen.
They keep saying things like oh he’s just hungry, it was the ROP, gosh he’s a wiggly baby, his nappy must be dirty. Nope, it’s none of these things. He is completely not himself. Maybe he can sense my stress and how much I don’t want to be here.
The X-ray and the blood tests come back fine. They say it’s normal for babies to react after a transfer. Well, is it normal for a mother to resuscitate her own child in the middle of neonatal unit with numerous staff present?
I’m exhausted but I can’t leave. I don’t trust it here. I can’t leave my baby in the back of a dark room. Lee feels the same and I stayed for hours and hours. I debated sleeping overnight in the chair. If I sleep in this chair I’ll be no good to anyone tomorrow, aka today because it’s past midnight now. I need to sleep, the night nurse promised me she would stay in the room all night.
I’m mad at myself too. I feel like I didn’t fight hard enough. I should have laid down and let the cops drag me out of NICU. What else could I have done?