A Rough First Week

Well, I had intentions of posting all about Sonnie's birth story. I also had intentions of posting oodles of pictures of her in cute outfits and making adorable faces. Telling about how she had her first visit to the doctor and was not crazy about yet another heel stick for a "just in case" check for her jaundice levels.

That all came to a halt when the doctor called Monday night at 5 and said she was arranging the details for us to head to Children's hospital.

Originally it was because of her billirubin (sp?) levels which are the indicators for jaundice, coupled with her weight loss since birth. We got to the hospital and while they told me to go directly to be admitted, I didn't actually think they meant for an extended period of time. I thought they'd just admit us for a few hours, pop her under the lights and we'd get out sometime late that night. I broke down when nurses started talking about a 2 day stay. Was this really that serious? I especially questioned it when her levels weren't high enough to even warrant being placed under the lights (though not low enough to be discharged) and we were basically just monitoring her feeding schedule. Something I asked the nurse if it could be done at home; they explained a concern to monitor for dehydration which I certainly didn't want to mess with.

It wasn't too long into being there however that the doctor's concerns with potential dehydration came to fruition and my baby took quite a turn. Our first indicator was when I pumped and was only able to get 5 ml of breast milk from each breast. I called the nurse to let her know that I believe we found the culprit. It was shortly after this that her skin got drastically dry, her lips were so chapped, she became lethargic...I went from questioning the need to be under this much observation to being grateful for it. The next several hours were quite stressful for Sonnie (and Mommy).

She needed an IV but because of the dehydration, it was incredibly difficult even for the very skilled and patient nurses to get it placed. Altogether it took 4 different nurses and it was on the 7th stick that they finally placed the IV. In the breaks in between she was also given a feeding tube as her energy levels had dropped to a point that she couldn't stay awake long enough to take a bottle. Plus in the midst of this, every 4 hours they were doing heel sticks to check her billirubin levels. I've never wanted to trade places with someone so much in my life. I mean, that was my heart laying there on that bed, getting poked and prodded and crying with what little energy she had left because it hurt so badly.

Sonnie's IV and all the stuff it took to keep it in place on a newborn.

My poor baby and all of her gear. I don't know how NICU moms do it...

Right after the placement of her feeding tube.

Once she was receiving fluids on a regular basis, she began to make progress. We had fantastic nursing staff overall who were very patient and accommodating. My only hospital experience has been in this first week - first in the maternity ward and now at Children's. I was so impressed that everytime they left the room, the nurses always asked "is there anything I can get for you? Do you need anything?" We only had one bad experience with a nurse that decided to impatiently feed her 10 ml of formula through the tube "hydrolically" as my dad put it since he was there to witness it (other nurses fed her by gravity - a very slow method but easy on a 6-day old baby's tummy; this nurse plunged it through the tube at about 5 times the speed that gravity would have). Sonnie heaved every bit of fluid we'd worked so dilligently to get down her through a bottle (a big necessary step in her recovery) all because this nurse wanted to rush things. All of the stuff holding her IV in place had to be re-taped which meant more for her to be in unnecessary pain over. I could've caused some major physical harm to this nurse but I instead opted to take her in the hall & professionally tell her that if either of us was going to have a decent evening, she needed to work on finding us a different nurse. It added an amazing amount of undue stress but the nurse I got in her place was amazing and made me feel so comfortable. My mom also stayed the night with us which gave me a chance to at least get a few hours of sleep. I'd been going on close to 48 hours without any by this point.

Fortunately, by morning rounds on Wednesday morning, Sonnie had made such strides that they arranged for us to be discharged. We determined that I could no longer breastfeed (aside from pumping what little I had available) but that was a small price to pay to have a healthy baby to take home. She's looking 100% better now and we're getting her feeding routine down. She's sleeping better, her color is good and when we went for a follow up appointment on Friday, her weight went up 1 lb 2 oz since Monday!

Now we've been able to settle in as a family and we are loving getting to know our little one. She's beautiful, alert, healthy and sweet as can be. We can't wait for everyone to meet her!