NICU

This is the not so fun post of Leeland's start to life so I will try to make it short.  I'm still struggling a bit to process his time in the NICU but writing is supposed to be therapeutic right?  Leeland was born with very low blood sugar that all the doctors we spoke with blamed on the medication I was taking for gestational diabetes.  I knew with having GD that low blood sugar was always a possibility and that was why I worked so hard to try and keep my sugars in line.  Eli had spent his first week of life in the NICU with breathing problems and this was a place I hoped to never see again. 

Leeland spent roughly 18 hours at our local hospital before it was determined that they were going to be unable to stabilize his sugars and he would need to be transported.  I handled this all really well because I knew what to expect and knew that he needed better care than he was receiving at our local hospital. The transport team was amazing and I felt so much better once I knew he was in their care and on his way to where he needed to be.

I delivered Leeland at 4:30 in the morning on Thursday, Leeland was transported around 11PM on Thursday and I was discharged after midnight Friday morning, when we rushed home to change out clothes and such and get up to the NICU around 3 in the morning.  At this point I hadn't slept since Wednesday night, but we had to keep pressing on for our boy.  The NICU would only let one of us in at a time, so I proceeded inside while Peter slept in the car with the intention of me going home in the morning and then he would hang out with Leeland during the day while I rested.  

Immediately after I got into the NICU I could hear him crying in his room.  The whole thing still makes me sick because he was so uncomfortable and in pain from a crappy IV done at our local hospital. Fortunately by the time we got to the NICU they had removed the IV and were trying to help ease his pains.  They immediately let me scoop him up for a bit which helped comfort him. Eventually they made him go back in the warmer for torturous hours while he just didn't rest easy.  All the energy he was burning crying did not help his blood sugars. Finally after I kept begging, they let me snuggle him again and he settled right down for hours. But that first 24 hours was ROUGH! 

Essentially we just had to wait until his body kicked into gear making the correct amount of insulin. We were told it could take anywhere from a couple hours to 10 days for this to happen. They had him on a dextrose IV for the first day or so in the NICU and then his IV failed and they decided to do something different than protocol and let him stay off the IV and let him feed on demand. Typically they would slowly wean from the IV and only allow feeds every 3 hours. Letting him do his thing and eat when he wanted really helped him we think. 

They did decide to put in an NG tube that way he got complete feedings because he was really struggling to want to eat from a bottle. But he only used that for a short time before he decided he wanted to eat and then it was off to the races.  He would have been discharged earlier but he had one wonky blood sugar in a 24 hour period that made them want to keep him another day for monitoring.  This was good though because in those 24 hours his blood sugar went from the 40's to the 70's so we had complete confidence that his little body was working well before we left the hospital! 

It was a complete whirlwind 4 days in the NICU. I'm so thankful our time there was short but only one parent being allowed in at a time and getting very little sleep as we rotated back and forth to care for this little guy was rough.  I am thankful that he only needed care for something simple like blood sugar but I still feel so bad for him that he was in pain and there wasn't much I could do for him.  As any parent with a child in the NICU knows, it is so hard to come and go and have to walk out of that room without your baby.  It is just an emotionally draining experience no matter how long or short the stay is.  I am so thankful for Peter and the rock he is for our family. He was my rock when we walked through the NICU experience with Eli and he was again this time. Post partum recovery kicked my butt at times and when I couldn't keep going he was right there to pick it up and take over so our boy always had one of us there for him!  

 The good news is that our little guy is home now and doing great. He is getting all the extra snuggles as we have barely put him down.  He deserves all the love and snuggles after such a rough start! He has been so resilient and gone with the flow so well.  In general he has a very calm disposition and only fusses when he's hungry.  We are so grateful that he is here and healthy and hope that it will be nothing but smooth sailing for his life from here on out!