When Dustin and his dad got to the hospital, they went to the registration desk. After asking where they could find me, they were told I was just getting out of surgery. You can imagine the surprise he felt, only last hearing from me when I was in the ambulance and I told him about the traffic from the dumped over milk truck. He just found out that not only was his wife in surgery, but his son was already in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). They made their way to see Eli for the first time and were amazed at what they saw. He was 996 grams (2 pounds, 3 ounces) and about 14 inches long. Dustin said there were tubes everywhere, and he was definitely concerned. The best part of this story is about Eli's nurse. To give you a little background info, my husband works hard for a living. By that I mean, his hands are stained with dirt and rough with calluses. His pants look like he has been rolling in the mud, even after they have been washed multiple times. That being said, after scrubbing up at the sink by the entrance to the NICU, he was clean but maybe, just maybe, Eli's very first nurse (Heidi) thought Dustin was too dirty and reminded him to wash up nice and good before even thinking about "touching your baby". After surveying the situation, a son and his father seeing their miniature posterity for the first time, they made their way back to my room and were told I would be back shortly. From what I hear, I was a mess when I returned to the room. I had been on large doses of magnesium, and now a ton of painkillers, add that on top of recovering from the anesthesia from surgery...I was a hot mess! I had to stay on the mag for another 24 hours which would make it hard to go see our baby.
After a good nights rest in the hospital room (yeah right!) I felt up to making a trip to the NICU. I tried to get out of bed as soon as the magnesium was stopped, but almost passed out. The nurses decided they could wheel the bed down to see Eli. Although it is a huge blur in my brain, I will never forget the trip. We started down the hallway through a few sets of heavy closed doors and turned around what seemed like 50 corners. We made our way through the doors to the NICU and Dustin signed me in. We stopped at the big metal sink so Dustin could scrub up and make sure he was extra clean. I still have no idea how that hospital bed fit down the hallway to Eli's room. I didn't know much about where he was staying, I'm not gonna lie, it was far from fancy and not what I had expected. The bed crashed through the doorway to room 3. There was barely room to fit the head of the bed next to Eli's incubator. I don't really remember my first glimpse of him. He looked like a real baby surprising me with all his hair. He didn't move much and neither did I. I just stared at him, not believing he was ours. I was groggy and pretty out of it so we went back to my room, the bed banging empty incubators and oxygen cans along the way. I don't think I saw him again until either late that night or the next day. I do remember I needed to take a shower. I needed to get up and was beginning to grasp the motivation to do so. Later that night I decided it was time to get up and walk. After gaining my balance and putting on my fancy hospital socks, I did laps around the maternity ward. I think my nurse wanted me to stop but I kept saying I needed to do one more and I needed to take a shower!
Throughout the weekend We made multiple visits to see Elijah. Saturday morning, May 7th, we went to our first morning "rounds". Rounds are a meeting in which the Neonatologist, the Nurse Practitioners, the Residents, the Attendees, and Eli's nurse for the day, all meet to come up with a game plan for each baby in the NICU for the day. Problems with the baby, how to help, what tests to do, and so on. The news for Eli wasn't the best. He had started to turn a dusky grayish blue, he was swelling up and retaining fluid, his heart was enlarged, they needed to check for a brain bleed, and his kidneys and intestines weren't working. Maneesh (the Neonatologist) was so great at explaining this all to us and we left rounds hopeful, but worried. Eli was sick, and they were running tests to find out why. Maneesh told us that so far all the tests they had done came back showing nothing. There was no reason for Eli to be so sick. He hypothesized that Eli had taken such a huge hit on his health right before he was born and that was what he was trying to recover from. In the meanwhile, they kept doing tests incase they missed anything.
On Sunday, I was discharged from the hospital. After going back and forth in my brain about what to do when we got discharged, I decided it was right for me to be home with my family. I couldn't drive, I didn't have a room at the hospital, and our girls needed me. I needed to go home and organize my brain, our new life, and heal before we could plan how to conquer the next 10 weeks with a sick baby in a hospital 2 hours away from our house. So, on Sunday night, we left our 4 day old 996 gram sick baby in the hospital and drove 100 miles away from him.
Throughout the weekend We made multiple visits to see Elijah. Saturday morning, May 7th, we went to our first morning "rounds". Rounds are a meeting in which the Neonatologist, the Nurse Practitioners, the Residents, the Attendees, and Eli's nurse for the day, all meet to come up with a game plan for each baby in the NICU for the day. Problems with the baby, how to help, what tests to do, and so on. The news for Eli wasn't the best. He had started to turn a dusky grayish blue, he was swelling up and retaining fluid, his heart was enlarged, they needed to check for a brain bleed, and his kidneys and intestines weren't working. Maneesh (the Neonatologist) was so great at explaining this all to us and we left rounds hopeful, but worried. Eli was sick, and they were running tests to find out why. Maneesh told us that so far all the tests they had done came back showing nothing. There was no reason for Eli to be so sick. He hypothesized that Eli had taken such a huge hit on his health right before he was born and that was what he was trying to recover from. In the meanwhile, they kept doing tests incase they missed anything.
On Sunday, I was discharged from the hospital. After going back and forth in my brain about what to do when we got discharged, I decided it was right for me to be home with my family. I couldn't drive, I didn't have a room at the hospital, and our girls needed me. I needed to go home and organize my brain, our new life, and heal before we could plan how to conquer the next 10 weeks with a sick baby in a hospital 2 hours away from our house. So, on Sunday night, we left our 4 day old 996 gram sick baby in the hospital and drove 100 miles away from him.
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