Gretchen's Stay in the NICU

While we were in the hospital, we had a bad day where Gretchen had to go to the NICU. It was my first postpartum night and I went to bed thinking they would bring Gretchen in about 2:30 am to eat. I woke up on my own at 2:45 and was wondering where she was. I called my nurse who came in to give me meds and she told me that she'd call the nursery. She came back in to tell me that the baby's nurse was on her way in. I assumed this meant she was on her way in to give me Gretchen to eat.

I was wrong.

She came in and told me that she thought Gretchen looked a little "dusky" and hooked her up to an O2 monitor. You want your oxygen saturation levels to be in the high 90's. Anything about 94 is really good though. Gretchen was in the mid 80s. Not so good. She also told me that while checking her vitals, she thought she detected a heart murmur. So she called the NICU nurse practitioner. She came in and told me that they were going to try feeding her a little formula and keeping her on the O2 monitor and see what her oxygen levels did while eating. If they were high, she'd stay in the full term nursery. If they dipped, she'd go to the NICU. They'd come back in an hour.

So I waited. I drifted in and out of sleep while waiting, sure that they'd come back and say she was fine and be back with me.

Wrong again.

They came back at 3:30 am and told me that her oxygen levels dropped too low and she was indeed going to the NICU. They brought her in for me to say goodbye and I cried. They told me it was mainly precautionary and she should be back with me by mid morning. They also said I should come down around 6 am to feed her if I wanted to continue nursing. They also recommended that I pump since I didn't feed her at 2:30.

Then they took her.

I pumped and went to bed for about an hour. My alarm went off at 5:30. I called my nurse to get my pain meds and anything else I might need and asked for a ride down to the NICU. They brought me down, got me an ID badge, and taught me the ropes. They taught me how and where to scrub in. They showed me which POD Gretchen was in (the elephant POD). And they showed me my baby.

The nurse was very nice. She told me that she'd be back upstairs by 10 am. I felt better but not great. It's not fun to have your baby taken away the day after she's born to go to an intensive care unit. Even if it is precautionary and mainly for observation. It's scary and sad to not get to hold her whenever you want.

One thing that is interesting is every baby is hooked up to a monitor. Now each baby is being monitored for different things. Gretchen was being monitored for O2 saturation, heart rate and respiratory rate. If another baby had something drop below a certain level (HR below a certain number or respiratory rate lower than normal) an alarm will go off in every room so that the nurses will know where to go and how quickly they need to respond. There were a few rooms that always went off. Since I'm in nursing school I've learned a lot about "normals" for vital signs and reading heart monitor EKG's, etc. Some of those babies are fighting really hard for their lives and I'm so thankful that Gretchen isn't one of those babies and I'm saying many prayers for those babies that are fighting.

Even though Gretchen wasn't having to fight like those other babies, I still didn't like her being in the NICU.

I especially didn't like all the wires attached to her. But the NICU team was great.

I spent the next full day coming down for one hour every three hours. It killed me to leave her but I was exhausted and needed to go up to eat. My Dad came and visited us. So did my Mom. Later that night, Nick was finally able to come up. We all just kept waiting for them to tell me she could come back upstairs. 

Around 7 pm, the nurse and on call doctor told me she could come back upstairs but it would be awhile because a baby was just admitted who wasn't doing well and they needed as many people as possible to help with him. I completely understood that. Just the knowledge that my baby was doing better and could come back up was good enough for me.

Nick brought me dinner and we ate and I went back down to the NICU to wait for Gretchen to be able to come up. Well at 10, then told me I should go upstairs and they would bring her up when the full term nursery was ready. I listened.

Around 11 pm, I called the NICU and asked why she still wasn't up. They said the full term nursery hadn't accepted her yet. So I called the nursery. They said the NICU hadn't called yet. I asked them to call the NICU and straighten this out because I wanted my baby!

By 11:45 pm, Gretchen was back upstairs with me. Right where she belonged!

It was a long day. I'm glad they were cautious and checked her out. I didn't want her to be left upstairs and something really bad happen, but I hated having her gone. You only get 2 days in the hospital when you delivery vaginally and one of those days was her in the NICU. It made me sad, but she's happy and healthy now and that's all that matters!

We are so in love with our baby girl!