Day 5

Wednesday-- Day 0 of countdown

I spent most of the early morning hours in the nursery with Addison, feeding and rocking and watching her. I counted down the minutes to the 24 hour mark which would have been 3:00 am. She had been great all through the night except for one episode when she was eating. She had needed some stimulation to come back to normal levels but no oxygen was needed.

At 3:00am I went back to bed excited that we had made it 24 hours. I got a few hours of sleep and woke up at 7 to go check on the baby. There was nothing but good reports when we got to the nursery and I was convinced it would be the day she was coming home. I was thrilled :) we saw the pediatrician over in the corner making some notes and I figured they were discharge papers. I started nursing the baby so happy to finally have good news. About 15 minutes later the pediatrician came over and instantly I knew something was wrong. My heart broke and my eyes filled with tears. He told us he wasn't comfortable with the one bad spell she had that night and even though it didn't require oxygen he thought she still shouldn't go home. He had called the neonatoligist (baby specialist) and she recommended a 7 day stay in the NICU from her last serious event.

I wish I could say I handled the news well, but I didn't. I tried to listen to everything the pediatrician was saying but I couldn't. I was too tired and sad and disappointed. I sat and cried while I watched my baby eat. 7 days seemed like forever. The NICU seemed like such a scary place where really sick babies went. I didn't want her there, I wanted her home with me. Chris, of course, took the news in stride and spent the next few hours trying to comfort and calm me.

Addison was admitted to the NICU around 11 that morning. When I went down to see her she was stripped down to her diaper and had a million different cords connected to her. We were on day 1 of 7 and I felt like crawling in a hole and disappearing for the next week. My emotions were raw my eyes were tired and I spent most of the day just seconds away from a major melt down. Addison seemed to be doing well and all the nurses were encouraging. They thought that she was going to be home in no time. Some nurses even questioned why she had been sent down because she seemed to be fine.

During the course of the rest of that day I had 5 or 6 different doctors come in to tell me all the things that could be wrong with her including but not limited to..

micrognathia- her jaw is really really small and could be the reason she isn't breathing right ( you can read about it here http://www.drchetan.com/micrognathia.html)

a tethered cord- the bottom of her spinal cord might not have developed

low motor tones- the muscles in her joints seem to be overly lax

premature lungs

sleep apena- she forgets to breathe when she sleeps

the problems associated with SUA (the problem I had with my umbilical cord)

Wednesday ended in lots of tears and pleas for help. I didn't quite know how I would make it through the next 6 days. I felt overwhelmed with all the problems the doctors were presenting me with that they seemed to have no answers or solutions for.