8 Days in the NICU

Jason's birth story starts in the previous post.

As the nurses were weighing him, and after giving him Apgar scores of 8 and 9, they noticed that he was grunting. They gave him some air and had the NICU nurse evaluate him. They had me hold him real quick before he was taken to the NICU to be on the CPAP machine. Tony went with him and I had to stay in my room until I could stand up and pivot into a wheelchair. But instead of it taking two hours like they told me, it took a little over an hour and I was down with my baby.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

He had to have an IV to make sure he was getting some nutrition. No mom wants to see her baby with an IV in his head.

From June 16, 2012

Getting his first bath.

From June 16, 2012

The crazy thing about the NICU is that when your child is there, you feel like you are in a time warp. It doesn't help that you are getting up every 1.5-2 hours to help feed him or pump. We were told initially he would just be there for 4 hours. Then it became over night. A chest x-ray revealed that he had Pneumomediastinum or a pocket of air in the Mediastinum (area in chest between lungs). This site shows a picture of an x-ray that looked similar to Jason's. It was spontaneous and caused simply by his coming out in only 6 pushes and there not being the chance for a lot of the liquid to be expelled from his lungs. We had initially understood that he had a pneumothorax which is a small leak in his lungs, but that was probably just because of us being tired and there being such an onslaught of information. There are several kinds of "pneumos" that babies can get and Jason had the one that is least problematic. An x-ray on the 2nd morning showed that the air had mostly been absorbed and it had resolved itsef.

The fact that Jason's body had to concentrate on his breathing and resolving the pneumomediastinum, meant that he struggled with his suck reflex from the beginning and it took him a little longer to learn to feed on his own. They did a cranial ultrasound to see if there was anything wrong with his central nervous system but there wasn't. So even though he came in for breathing issues, he stayed for eating issues. He had to be be tube fed for awhile. Also, he developed jaundice because Tony and my blood is incompatible.
On his tanning bed.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

Lori, one of our favorite nurses who helped us understand why Jason was being kept in the NICU so long. It didn't seem necessary at first and she helped us understand why Jason wasn't eating on his own.

From June 16, 2012

Hanging with daddy.

From June 16, 2012

Skin to skin

From June 16, 2012

Beautiful boy.

From June 16, 2012

Me and my sweetie.

From June 16, 2012

Meeting Max.

From June 16, 2012

Meeting Ryan. "I'm all done". Almost exactly what his big brother said when meeting him.

From June 16, 2012

Jason's white board. Annemarie had added the balloons. Tony added the airplane, helicopter and space shuttle.

From June 16, 2012

Angela was a favorite nurse.

From June 16, 2012

And Victoria was another favorite.

From June 16, 2012

Grandma came and held baby Jase a lot. It never ever seemed to be a problem. ; )

From June 16, 2012

"I've got no strings to hold me down" Thanks to nurses who understood the need to help things progress and challenge him just a little, Jason got his feeding tube out on Thursday morning (day 6). He would feed on-demand and if he maintained his weight and gained, he could go home.

From June 16, 2012

From June 16, 2012

Saturday morning at the 2am feeding, the nurse weighed him and he had gained 6 grams. I had been on pins and needles because day one of no feeding tube he had done great, but the second day he had slept more. Luckily, he did gain and I was bursting with excitement to call Tony and tell him we were coming home. I did wait until a more reasonable hour though. Things moved slowly and it wasn't until about noon that we were discharged. We were chomping at the bit to say the least. Here's Tony making a break for it. ; )

From June 16, 2012

In his carseat!!!! Ah, natural light, I'm not used to this.

From June 16, 2012

Home where he belongs.

From June 16, 2012

Brother's home!

From June 16, 2012

Dearest Jason, even though the first week of your life was different than we anticipated, we are so excited to have you in our lives. You have been a joy to have from the moment I held you when you first came out. You have shown us that different than we expect is so good. You were earlier than expected, smaller than expected, had more hair than expected and we love you for being YOU! You look so much like your brothers did as babies, especially Max. It will be fun to see you grow and develop. We're so happy and feel so blessed to have you in our family. Right now I have you wrapped up and snuggled against my chest because you don't like to be far away. It's quite alright because I don't like to be far from your arms either. Je t'aime beaucoup mon petit chou chou!