I had to leave her side, but I really didn’t want to. The nurse saw it on my face, she said “do you want to hold her”? Of course I wanted to… she picked her up careful not to tangle or pull on the leads and the iv, and she said “she has been off the oxygen and doing well on her own for a little while now”. I was already intimidated by the wires and the iv, now I knew she was on oxygen… what is wrong with her? Will she be okay? How long will she have to be down here? A flood of worry slowly started to drown me. The nurse said she appeared to be stunned from making the transition from the womb to the world. I had nine months to think about the moment the transition would happen, but to push away fear, I joked I would stay in the womb as long as possible to avoid being smacked in the face by a Maine January. In this moment, I was all out of jokes, fear and worry won.
I was holding her now, with her daddy, my mom, and the nurses all watching. I just stared at her. What was I supposed to feel in this moment? Everyone said it would be instant love, but they were wrong… I started loving her long before I met her. No I think I was in shock, everything had happened so fast. I snapped out of my moment to “we need to put her back and start another bag of fluids and check her blood again”.
We both ran a fever during delivery and were on antibiotics to nip any pending infection… so what am I supposed to do now? Leave her again?! crying again I went upstairs for my own meds and vitals, and to sleep… hahahahaha sleep… good one. Vitals were every hour, alternating meds, shift change, and separated from my baby… sleep… didn’t happen. I did manage to drink a smoothie and nibble on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and neither had ever tasted so good. I just wanted to see her again… we went back downstairs, and the nurse told us she was doing well and should be able to join us after shift change around 7:30pm! With the most compassionate face, she placed her in my arms. This time i wasn’t intimidated, I was in awe. This little human fought along with me for almost nine months and continued to do so… she made me want to be better and want better immediately. I noticed she was wearing a onesie now, and it made me smile because it seemed “normal”, unlike the rest of the scenario. Then I noticed a picture on the onesie… it was from our maternity shoot, I thought “awe how cute”. Then I noticed everyone appeared to be expecting more from me, like they were anticipating something… I looked down again and the onesie was a part of my marriage proposal! Charleigh wanted to know if I would marry her daddy … I just looked around, still in shock really, and then I heard a nurse in the hallway say “well”? And then I realized I had to answer… of course I will is what I said… so many emotions!!!
As I continued to hold her she latched on to my breast. Now what?! I was never going to breast feed! Now I am… I was never going to get married again… now I am? I needed sleep. After breastfeeding if that’s what I even did, we had to go back upstairs again. The nurse said they would bring her up to us after shift change. In my room, we unpacked a little and I think I even showered. We tried to stay busy to kill time until she was with us, but 7:45 came and she wasn’t here… why? We went back downstairs again and this time the nurse had a concerned look on her face. My heart sank, and my mind raced. What happened?! That’s when they told us Charleigh held her breath for no obvious reason and that Although they see it in babies struggling to make the transition, they had to keep her for the next 7 days… 7 days with no complications. I was overtired at this point, everything hurt now, and I felt defeated. What is wrong with my baby? What about my dogs at home? (I already missed them so much) where would we stay? We went back upstairs to gather our thoughts and try to come up with a plan. We decided to use my boyfriend’s travel points to stay at a nearby hotel for the week to be close by if anything should happen, and for feeding her. This meant my mom would have to commute back and forth, and take care of all 6 dogs, but she agreed it was the best plan. We visited and fed charleigh one more time before bed, although I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I was in a lot of pain now, my thoughts were clouded with worry, and I was exhausted. I knew charleigh was in the best of care, but it didn’t matter. Saturday morning we dragged ass down to see her. The nurse was very optimistic about her night. She slept well, fed well, and breathed on her own without oxygen just fine!
A little worry burned off, but the looking question of why this happened? At 7:30 it was time for shift change and the Dr. came in. He explained this happens often, but can be for many different reasons which is why she would stay for the week. I actually felt relieved at this point. I wanted her to stay, if anything should happen, there is no better place for it to happen. We were and are lucky, things could always be worse, and we saw worse all around us. We gathered our things to bring to the hotel whenever we went. I couldn’t focus, my tailbone hurt so bad. I wondered if I dislocated it. With my vitals every 4 hours now, and a heating pad, I tried to make today a day for rest… sort of. I showered, my nurse from labor and delivery came back to visit, and braided my hair again! You never want to be in this position, but if ever you are, these are the people you want around you. Another familiar Dr. came to visit, family came to visit, things were looking better. Later that afternoon we went to visit charleigh again, and her nurse greeted us at her door… the very same nurse. When did she ever go home?! She was so familiar to us and charleigh now she felt like family. She greeted us at the door to tell us charleigh had another spell… she held her breath again. Ugh. This time was very mild, but they still had to count it. All the emotions came back. Would this happen forever? What was causing this to happen? What if it happens at home? And so on… she told us to stay positive and if necessary further testing would be done, but they truly believed she needed more time to acclimate to the world. With sad and tired hearts we went to the cafeteria to eat dinner… and no I didn’t walk. I ate another pb&j and a protein drink. I just wanted to go home. The next morning I was visited by my Dr. who delivered with us. She heard about the difficulties and also reassured us she had seen this many times. I told her about my tailbone and she encouraged me to meet with OMT to have it looked at and treated. I asked her when I’d be going home, it’s been 2 days… I was nervous to leave charleigh, although I couldn’t be with her every second, it was only one elevator ride that separated us. She said she would see if I could stay one more night due to my tailbone issue, but then her phone rang, off to delivery! My boyfriend went home to see the dogs and grab some more clothes for the week at the hotel. I decided to spend the day with Charleigh. She was doing great, her iv would come out today!
I stayed with her until 5 or so and then I went back upstairs for my meds and vitals. The new nurse gave me my meds and some papers. I asked her what I was supposed to do with them and she said “oh nobody told you, you’re being discharged”. I told her how my Dr. mentioned possibly another night… it wasn’t happening though. She came back in to take my IV out, and help me pack. We pushed all my things to Charleigh’s room in the NICU. It felt funny to wheel around that much stuff, but I knew we weren’t the only ones. Our favorite nurse was back on shift now and she asked how we wanted to make it through the night now that we weren’t right upstairs anymore. We said we would drive back and forth to feed her through the night… we got to the hotel around 9pm and I already had a missed call from them. My heart raced as I called them back. She answered and immediately said “don’t panic everything is fine, she’s just hungry, do you want to come back? or let us feed her”? We went back of course, but we were tired, and hungry. We fed her and then left again, only to get another call around 11. I had just fed her! They explained she may be cluster feeding and this pattern could continue… I couldn’t do it, I was exhausted, in pain, and my milk wasn’t in yet… we decided to have her bottle feed with formula. I slept from 12-5 and it felt like an eternity! We spent the next couple days like this, back and forth, and we finally found a grove. The nurses in the NICU are the most amazing people on the planet. To stay calm and ready in such crucial moments with the most fragile lives, and to be compassionate… I was in awe. Midweek I went home to get clothes and pat my dogs. They were so happy could barely catch them to pat them.
Home felt so weird, so dark and empty, and so far away. It gave me anxiety to be this far away from the hospital. We only stayed for 15 minutes and I wanted to get back. When we finally made it back, they told us charleigh would be moving to continuing care, just across the hall. Such good news, but so unsettling. I knew any groove we got in to was unrealistic to keep, but we got so comfortable at the NICU as weird as that may seem. Would she still have amazing nurses? would they switch her doctor? What if she had a spell there? Would they be as prepared? We were told we wouldn’t notice a difference in her care, but to expect to be more hands on with her.
They told us we could sleep there if we wanted to, but there was no way in hell my body was ready to sleep on what they offered for a bed. My back hurt, all my muscles hurt, my butt will never ever be the same, my stitches were driving me crazy, and my boobs… second to the post delivery sneeze nobody warned me about, these boobs of mine were on fire! That’s not even counting the chunk charleigh ate off my left one… all pain aside, the end of the week was fast approaching and we had completed our checklist to go home. Now it was Charleigh’s turn… just a bath, a car seat test, clean blood work, and a couple episode free nights stood between us and home. My worries transitioned to there… would charleigh pass her tests? Would the dogs be okay with her at home? Are we prepared enough?… endless thoughts. To break up the worry we decided to have a friend come take some photos since we knew she’d never be this small again. Again everything she does is cute now, so 900 photos later and we were bound to have some to love forever!
Friday rolled around and her Dr. came in to tell us everything was looking like discharge for Saturday! We were so excited we packed everything in her room and rushed back to the hotel to do the same. My mom shuffled things home for us all week as we no longer needed them along with all of our laundry. This week was taking a toll on us all, emotionally, physically, and financially.
Saturday morning we took a gamble and packed all of our things and checked out of our room, hoping the hospital would Discharge us… when we arrived to the hospital with all our belongings… again, charleigh was sleeping. We decided to get cafeteria food hopefully one last time.
When we came back to her room, we fed her, bathed her (which she loved), and now we waited…
hours went by, a little after noon time, and our nurse checked in. She couldn’t believe we were still there, she said she’s the queen of discharges. She went to check on things and meanwhile Todd fought with the insurance company Over the breast pump they were denying coverage for. If it weren’t for just pushing out an 8 pound baby, heading him fight so hard for a breast pump may have almost been a turn on. It was rather comical to watch an almost grown man be so passionate about something he couldn’t fathom using. He gave up on them and chose to go get one so we’d have one upon arriving home. When he came back a couple hours later she was sleeping again, and we still didn’t have any news. Our nurse came back in and started to remove the wires from charleigh… I actually got to hold my baby for the first time with no leash! It was amazing, best feeling I’ve ever had.
She told us to get ready, we were going home! Todd went to get the truck while I loaded up charleigh and the last few things we had. Then it hit me… we were going home. I felt so many things at once, happy, sad, worried, anxious… for a whole week even with all the ups and downs we met the most amazing people, were under supervision by the most knowledgeable, and were so incredibly lucky things went the way they did. Todd’s work sent us some beautiful flowers and as we packed, I wanted them to stay there, from charleigh to the staff. They just looked like they belonged there… I couldn’t count on all my fingers and toes how many times we saw doctors, nurses, and family stop to smell them… what a beautiful sight to see.
No matter how busy they were, or how sad someone may have been, they took that extra second to stop and smell them. Something I would like to always try and remember to do, figuratively and maybe sometimes literally. No matter how bad things may seem, they could always be worse.
