Burning out
NICU 29
I love you so
Day 82 - 90
Gestation 35 weeks
We took Sylvie to the beach this morning. It has been struggle with the guilt of splitting my time between Kayden and Sylvie. My babies are in two places and no matter how I organise it, it’s not enough. Its exhausting going back and forth I feel like no one is getting my best including Hubby. This morning I picked myself up, found some energy reserves and gave Sylvie all the attention for a play on the beach. A windy but worthy day. We do these fun things, I start to feel that family vibe and then remember Kayden is missing. Then I feel shitty for having family fun without our little boy,m. Like we are leaving him out intentionally when it’s obviously not the case. We would love to have him on the beach but he still requires respiratory support and nurse care. And Sylvie deserves to still have these fun moments with mom, dad and Steven (mini schnauzer). It’s been a long long journey and she needs us too.
Off to the hospital for the late afternoon. Kaydens been using a lot of energy to pass gas and poop. It’s making him a bit tachycardic.
I clearly reached deep into my reserves because the next day I was absolutely wiped. My body quit on me, I could barely keep my eyes open, I was so lethargic. I don’t know if that was a late effect from my second jab or hospital burn out. I’d like to say I slept for a few hours on the couch but it was more like passed out. My second day off in 83 days and it wasn’t by conscious choice, I was catatonic.
I did only a few hours the next day, I’m anxious about burning out again. I don’t want to another day away from Kayden. I got two nice long cuddles in and headed home.
The next day and there’s a baby sectioned off in a side room, it’s signed off and staff are in full PPE. I have to say after previous lack of policy I don’t have a lot of confidence in their ability to handle a contagious disease. I asked to see the infection policy, I wasn’t provided any written material on policy but was reassured that covid cases would be required to go to an isolation ward. That any nurse working with this case would not have any other baby patients. Parents and staff in that room would not be permitted to use common spaces such as the lounge or SCBU bathroom. This seems to be newly created policy, it’s good they have it but definitely should have been sorted long ago.
Kayden is down to 6litres on high flow and peed on me for the first time. I suspect this is the first of many. He had another bath and absolutely loved it, he is so settled after. He is now 4x his birth weight! 2310 grams!
He did very well overnight and had no brady or desats. He is a happy dude in high flow 6. He seems much more settled and comfortable. Which makes sense, it far less litres of air a minute going into his little body. He has another night with no Brady or desats, just a wee scratch on his face he did to himself.
We moved down another notch for highflow, onto 5 litres. He has one Brady overnight, dammit, it was such a good record. We are also trying to reduce the compressed feed down to 20 minutes to move back to bolus feeds again. I keep trying him on the breast but he’s so sleepy, he just rests there. I filed his nails for him while he slept. I put him back to change his nappy and he did the most epic poo. It hit the back of the cot and went sliding down onto his sheets. We all had a good laugh. Then Kayden got another bath, new sheets, clean clothes and his bed scrubbed. I love tucking him in for the night like that, all clean and cozy.
Feeds are down again to 15 minutes, which is pretty much a slow bolus. He had a beautiful weight gain of 2458 grams. And he did a really good breastfeed, finally! He latched on and stayed on for maybe ten minutes. I was so happy my eyes watered up. After 90 days of exclusive pumping it was incredible to have him feed from me. I have been waiting for this for so long. Pumping is like a chore, it’s an exhausting and relentless necessary evil. I am absolutely grateful for the technology and that it has sustained my milk so I could one day breastfeed him.
Kayden breastfeeding is beautiful, it’s bonding for us and heartwarming. It’s all I have wanted every time I pick up the pump. I am absolutely over the moon today. And he did it at the same time as a feed running so he would have gotten so much milk. Grow baby grow!