Friday, October 6, 2017

Our experience in NICU

Macy was born on September 4th! When she was born she had a really fast delivery (pushed 20 minutes) and she was out! On her way out she swallowed some amniotic fluid on her way out and a whole NICU team of nurses were there for her delivery due to her heart rate dropping! When she came out she did not cry, she was trying but couldn't manage it with the fluid in her lungs. When they took her off my chest to ressesitate her, she was hyperventilating etc. It was extremely heart breaking and scary. Jesse and my mom followed her to NICU where we would be for the next week! 
After she was born I was not allowed to go visit her for 2 hours afterwards..hardest 2 hours of my life..knowing I had this little baby that was only steps away from me. I had not seen her face, heard her cry yet or known that she was ok. Only way I knew she was ok was by Jesse telling me she was ok (which she really wasn't). 
The first time I saw her in NICU she had a c pap machine (breathing machine) on her, she was in a incubator. Tons of cords attached to her, we were not allowed to hold her because of the breathing machine. We were allowed to take our hands through a small opening in her incubator to touch her, whenever we would touch her or the nurses would touch her her stats would shoot right down. She was just a little sick baby. 
On day 2 we got our first bath! One of our favorite nurses Denelle showed us how to take a bath, and we did not like our bath that much we love having running water go over our body. But sitting in the bath was not very nice. We like being warm not cold at all! 
They decided to not allow her to feed for 24 hours after so that she could just focus on her breathing instead of eating. For the next 24 hours they began to decrease her oxygen levels going from 180% oxygen to about 60% oxygen. Another 12 hours after she was off oxygen completely! After she was breathing on her own they ran a test and she had an infection, so they began antibiotics. When we came back and saw her off the oxygen they wanted to begin feeds. She took to the breast really good but would not formula feed. Since she was so little they wanted her to feed good to keep her weight up they first put a tube down her throat to get the formula in her stomach, later on they put a nose tube in to feed her. By day 4 they took the tube out and basically waited for the numbers to go down so we could go home!
They had to insert a umbilicial central line since she kept on pulling out her IV and the nurses AND doctor would blow her veins when they would get one. We got our first haircut in NICU because they were trying so hard to find veins. It was scary for me to watch her do the procedure, they had to strap her down to the bed and because of the line it made it more difficult to hold her. Jesse and I got really good at knowing where that IV line was at all times making sure that we didn't pull on it at all.

While it was a scary experience in NICU haha we had some fun while in there. Our night nurse Taryn was our favorite nurse, she was on shift from 3 - 11 pm. Haha Macy did not like Taryn she would squack and cry every time she would hold her. When she went to hand Macy to Jesse she accidentally dropped her head to fast and she faced planted on his sweater. They both looked at me to see what my reaction was haha if I would kill them our not. We had our first blow out with her, it got everywhere, on Macy's legs, on my stomach, just everywhere. That was not our only blow out there was a nurse that had just gotten back from her maternity leave 2 days before and she blew out of her incubator. She was changing her went down to pick up a new diaper and Macy blew out the incubator it looked like a baby exploded with poop from the inside like how something blows up in a microwave. Splats everywhere! It ran down the side of the incubator on the floor, it got in the incubator draws over the clean diapers. It was everywhere and Jesse and I missed it. We walked in when they were changing the incubators because it was such a mess! For the next few days thats all the nurses would talk about haha.
Although it was not nice staying in NICU, they taught Jesse and I so many things. It gave me a chance to recover faster and rest up for when she got home! We love our nurses there, they were our angels that watched over our growing little family, but we are so glad we were able to bring her home!






No comments:

Post a Comment