The NICU

My little man was carted off to the NICU right after birth.The fact that he had to go there was so hard on me. It was the worst when I had to come home without him. All of the baby stuff was here an ready, but no baby. How could I do this? I wondered what I had done wrong to cause all of this to happen to my baby. I wondered what I could have done better, exercised more, eaten less, eaten more, maybe I shouldn't have had that half glass of wine at new years. I tore myself up over it for the first few days before I realized it didn't matter how it happened, it happend and we needed to focus on how to get him home.

 I later found out from a nurse he was in "pretty bad shape." All they would tell me was respitory distress. I missed the chance to do all of the things that I wanted to with my little guy when he was first born. The things they say help bonding. No skin to skin, no attempting to nurse right away, no waiting until the cord stopped pulsing, and I was even scared to give him his name. When he was taken away he was just Infant Male Knoke. We didn't name him until the next day. We thought we knew what we wanted but we wanted to get to know him first to make sure his name fit. We ended up changing his middle name we had wanted Connor Alexander, we ended up going with Connor Ezekiel. Ezekiel means "God Strengthens" and that's what we wanted, a strong little man who could come home to us. When we were finally able to visit over an hour later, he was hooked up to all kinds of tubes.

He had an oxygen tube, feeding tube down his throat, a heart monitor, respitory monitor, blood pressure monitor, areterial line, and an IV line.

Holding him was a procedure. Luckily most of the time we were there we had two amazing nurses, Dawn and Jessie. Erin was great too. I don't know how I would have been able to get through it without them. My babies first nursery was the NICU. This was not what I had expected. My second home became the NICU, this is not what we wanted for our family. We were there for 11 days. It was a celebration every time we progressed a step. Things got muddled as I was there for at least 12 hours a day.I think the progression went something like, he first got out his iv line, then the arterial line, the blood pressure cuff, the feeding tube got moved to his nose, then the oxygen tube, then the feeding tube. The monitor stayed on until he was just about ready to come home. After a few days of him being there, he needed to be treated for jaundice, this was very hard for me becuase I couldn't hold him except for feedings. He did however have the coolest little glasses.

He went from the overhead light inside the cube to the light from underneath that glowed blue. His grandfather (My step-dad) visited him every day before work and during lunch. He recited "Horton Hears a Who" to him when he came. My mom vistied when she could, but my brother was sick and was trying to pass it around. His Grandma D, visted once when we snuck her in, (we were only allowed 4 visitors) and his Grandpa J came and held him once as well. His Grandma M came once and then got sick and couldn't come back. So it was nice to have Grandpa B come and hang out.

His first bath was at the hospital as well.   I got to do it while the nurses hovered to make sure I didn't drown my baby. This had to wait until almost everything was gone, he was down to just his feeding tube and monitors. He only fussed a little when he first went in, but he really seemed to enjoy it, until I took him out and he got a little cool.

Having him there was so hard, I don't know how people can do it for months. I don't think I could have stood it for much longer than I did. They tell you to rest while you can, it's good advice. All I can really say is I am glad they took such good care of him and I am so happy to have him home.

EVERYTHING IS OFF!