Adventures in the NICU

Hannah spent a week and one day in the neonatal intensive care unit. We are BEYOND grateful for modern medicine, the great doctor and fantastic nurses in the NICU.

Taken Feb 10th in the morning

When they first took her out of my room I was sure that she would only be gone an hour or two...8 days later we got to bring her home.

Feb. 9th- Hannah was breathing too fast (they wanted her to be around 40 per minute and she was around 120-130) and her oxygen saturation kept dropping into the low 80's (they wanted her above 90). The fast breathing makes it dangerous for babies to eat because it is easier for them to aspirate on the milk, so they started an IV to give her fluids and sugar. She had a slight fever. They started her on two antibiotics to fight her infection.

Feb. 10th- When we visited Hannah in the morning they let us hold her! She only tolerated being held for about 20 minutes. She had good spells where her breathing rate dropped quite a bit. She also looked a little less swollen!After I got my IV out and was able to get in the shower I headed back to be with Hannah.
I was able to hold her a lot longer this time. It felt good to actually hold her and cuddle her (as much as you can when she was connected to three different machines!!)

That night Mckenna and Andrew came to visit mommy in the hospital. They weren't able to see Hannah (because of flu and RSV season) and Mckenna was devastated. We had to explain to her lots of times that she would see her soon.
That night Hannah had a very rough night. The night nurse said she cried for hours and didn't calm down until 3:30am.

Feb. 11th- After her rough night they asked us to let her sleep as much as possible, so again I wasn't able to hold her :-( . I knew I would be discharged that evening and my emotions were going crazy. I cried a lot!
At about 4pm the neonatalogist, Dr Z., came to talk to us. Each day they re-did the white blood cell test. Her numbers went up on the 10th and then down on the 11th. He said that definitely indicated that there was an infection. The first blood culture didn't grow anything, but he said that is common since I had been on two different antibiotics before giving birth. He told us the chest x-ray did not show any pneumonia or infection in her lungs- hooray. But, he was worried that it could have become meningitis (group b strep can become meningitis). We decided that she should have a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) to determine if that was the case. No matter what she would need to stay to finish a 7 day course of antibiotics and if it happened to be meningitis it would be at least 21 days. We were praying hard for just 7 days!!! He also informed us that she pulled her oxygen off on her own, but that she was doing really well so they let her stay off of it. They also told us that her breathing was slowing enough that they would let her eat and see if that would help calm her down. It was great news!

Wearing her first bow!!! Nurse Ashley found this one that would work with the IV in her head!

My first time feeding her

That night I was discharged to go home. The hospital was not very busy, so the nurses let me stay in my room one more night so that I would be close Hannah. I got up for every feeding in the night. I wanted to do as much for her as I could while I was close.

Feb 12th- Hannah did really well all night. She weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, which was her lowest weight. The next morning Jeff and the kids came to see Hannah through the nursery window. I forgot the camera :-( Jeff took a few pictures with his phone. After that I headed home to be with the other two kids for a little. Then I started what would be my life for the next 6 days---splitting my time between home and the hospital.

Hannah's NICU bed

That night Hannah's head IV went bad and they had to move it to her foot. That day they started feeding her 30 mLs and then she was supposed to increase each feeding by 5 mLs until she reached her goal of 70 mLs. As she ate more they would decrease the amount of TPN (IV nutrition) that she was receiving. She did really well the first day because her expectations were low.

Feb 13th- We began our battle with hunger :-) Hannah was receiving all of her nutrition and water through the IV. Her tummy still felt hungry, but as soon as that feeling was gone she wouldn't finish eating. She just ate enough to satisfy the empty stomach feeling. I spent most of my time at the hospital feeding her and then holding her in a good position to keep her from spitting up everything she ate (she did that a couple of times before...) Now that she was feeling better I was determined to get this girl eating and home as soon as she ended her antibiotics.
The IV was out of her head, so I was able to put a cute bow on her!
She also got to meet Grandma Gall in the morning while Kenna was at dance class.
And that night daddy came to hold her!
Feb 14th- HAPPY VALENTINES DAY. I had the worst morning. I was feeling so many emotions about having Hannah in the hospital. I headed to the hospital to meet Jeff. On the way I decided I need some one on one time with him to compose myself :-)...we went to Denny's for breakfast together!
Her IV got moved back into her head :-( The lumbar puncture culture did not grow any thing. WOOHOO! No meningitis! Hannah continued to eat between 25-50 mLs per feeding- they wanted her eating 70 mLs. I went to the hospital for the morning feeding after shift change (around 8am), headed home after naptime to spend time with Mckenna and Andrew, ate dinner (provided by many wonderful women from church- THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!), got the kids into bed and then headed back to the hospital. I am tired just thinking about it!!!

Feb 15th- Her IV got moved again, this time to her hand, poor girl! The nurses glued a bow in her hair after they washed it. It was ADORABLE!!
She started looking so much more alert and happy!!!
I started to get very frustrated with this whole NICU system. Most of the NICU is set up for premie babies who need to meet a check list of things before they can go home. We had a full term baby who just had an infection, but she was being treated like the premies. According to her birth weight she should have been eating 70 mLs every 3 hours. I did bottles with my other two kids, occasionally, in the first week of life and neither of them every ate that much!! Most full term babies are going home nursing and their mom's milk hasn't even come in... I finally talked-and cried- through all of my frustrations with the night time nurse. I was so afraid that not eating enough was going to delay her coming home even longer. The next morning Barb, the night time nurse, talked to the nurse practitioner for us. They all agreed that getting her off the IV fluid would be key to getting her to eat more.

Feb 16th- I showed up to do the first feeding and Margaret, the nurse practitioner, came to see me. She asked if I would be able to stay all day long that day to basically pretend that Hannah was home and feed her the way I would at home. Then she would have me sleep in a nesting room that night to do the same thing through the night. I was ECSTATIC!!!!! I had just come to terms with the fact that it would still be days before we would be able to bring her home.

Hannah finished her last dose of antibiotics early Thursday morning, so in the late morning she got unhooked from the IV (they kept the actually tube in her hand until they knew for sure she wouldn't be put back on the IV nutrition). She got a bath and then we got moved into a nesting room. All clean after her bath

She did so fantastic. She was quite the night owl, but I didn't care if I only slept two hours because she was coming home!!!!!!!!!!

Hannah had three blood cultures and a spinal fluid culture done to find out what type of infection she had. None of them grew any bacteria. It is very common for this type of blood culture not to grow anything because she received penicillin through me before birth and after birth she was on antibiotics of her own. The doctors assume is was a strep b infection since that is the most likely scenario. We are glad she is healthy now :-)