Matthew's Birth Story, Part Four: Recovery and Going Home!

The second day of Matthew's life brought some great news! Nathan had gone home that morning to do some things, so I was on my own. I went down to the NICU about 9:00 that morning to check on Matthew and be there for his next feeding, and the nurse greeted me with a big smile. The first words out of her mouth were,

"Do you want to hold him?"

"WHAT?! Really?! I can hold my baby?!"

I was so excited! They had taken the feeding tube out and had Matthew on IV fluids only, but they told me that I could try to nurse him if I wanted to. One of the requirements for his discharge would be that he take all feedings by mouth, rather than through the tube, so they were really trying to get him to eat. They also wanted me to have the chance to do some kangaroo care (skin-to-skin cuddle time) with him to help with his body temperature and respiratory issues. I wasn't complaining!

 Mommy and Matthew - Day Two!

It was a little awkward to try to hold him with all the tubes and wires everywhere, and I was worried that I was going to accidentally mess something up or pull something out.  The nurse was kind enough to offer to take a picture for me, and I really appreciated it so much. Then, I got the chance to try to breastfeed him, which made me so, so happy.

I spent as much time with Matthew as I could. Walking back and forth from the NICU to my room got a little redundant (as did washing my hands 400 times a day). I would walk down there, spend an hour or more there with Matthew, and then walk back to my room. He was on a strict feeding schedule, and was eating every three hours, and I was trying to make a point to be there for each feeding, if possible. By the time I finished pumping or whatever else I had to do (fill out birth certificate paperwork, get my vitals checked, meet with the OB or the pediatrician, sign a million consent forms for a ton of different things, have a quick meal, call or text people to let them know what was going on...), it was time to walk back down there again. Now, I know the nurses and doctors were there, caring for him non-stop, but I'm Matthew's mother, and I wanted to do as much as I could. I needed to feel like I was contributing to his healing, and I didn't want to be in a hospital room alone all day long with nothing to do except focus on my own anxiety.

For some reason, this sign always made me feel nervous.

And it never really got easier to walk into the unit and see my baby surrounded by so much...stuff.

The best news of the day came that afternoon. They were still doing periodic x-rays of Matthew's lungs, and they had done one that morning. On one of my trips to see Matthew, the doctor came over to tell me that the pneumothorax (the hole in Matthew's lung) had completely resolved! It was gone! Wooooohooooo!

That afternoon, Nathan came back to the hospital and my parents brought the kids up to see me. We did take Ethan and Zoe down to the NICU to see their little brother, but it was a huge ordeal. We had to present their shot records for review before they were allowed to go back, and they had to scrub just like the adults. Also, they could only go in one at a time for fifteen minutes each. Poor Nicholas wasn't able to go because there was a vaccination that wasn't written down on his shot record. We decided not to take Anna because she's still so little.

Later that day, we had some other visitors. Joseph and Marissa came with their kiddos, and John and Sharon were there, too. It made me feel better to see everyone, and when they left it was kind of depressing. John bought us dinner from a local Mexican restaurant and brought in a huge (very yummy) chocolate cake.

By the time the next morning (Monday, the 7th) rolled around, he was still improving. The doctor had issued orders during the night to reduce the amount of oxygen he was breathing and also to reduce the flow, and his oxygen saturation numbers had been stable for more than 12 hours. This meant that Matthew was starting to be able to breathe better without help, and those breaths that he was taking were effectively getting oxygen into his system. All good news! 

When I went to visit later that afternoon, I got two more surprises!

No nasal cannula and no IV!

Matthew was happy about it, too. :)

At this point, we were just watching him to make sure that he was going to be completely stable without any help. His respiratory rate was close to normal, his heart rate was fine, he was taking all feedings by mouth, he no longer needed oxygen, he didn't need IV fluids anymore, and his body temperature and blood sugar were normal and being regulated as they should be. I couldn't believe how much progress he had made in just two short days! It was really looking possible that we could be bringing him home very soon, but I tried not to get my hopes up. I wanted him to be completely well before they let him leave, and I knew that only time would tell us if he had totally healed.

That day was kind of awkward for me. I was being discharged from the hospital, but Matthew wasn't. No one seemed to know if I was going to be able to stay there an extra day and be with him, and it took forever for anyone to make a final decision. At some point during the day, my nurse came to tell me that I was definitely going to be discharged, but they were going to let me stay in my room, as a courtesy, for as long as Matthew was still in the NICU, since he was expected to go home soon. I was staying there, and could still receive meals and use the little mini-kitchens they have available for patients, but I could no longer receive medication, sanitary supplies, or medical attention from the nurses. No one was going to come into my room to check on me anymore. I didn't have any access to anything outside the hospital and I didn't have a vehicle there, so I went off meds without any choice. Luckily, I was feeling pretty good and wasn't having much pain.

I have to say, though, that night was a little scary. I was in the hospital, but it was more like a twisted hotel visit. There were so many familiar-yet-scary noises in the hallways, people were always shuffling around, and I was still restricted by a lot of the hospital rules, but I wasn't really "there" anymore. Nathan was at home with the other kids, so I spent that night alone. I tried to avoid being freaked out by staying with Matthew as much as I could. Those NICU nurses probably thought I was clingy, but I couldn't help it. At that point, the NICU was much less freaky than my empty, dark hospital room. All the walking back and forth was really taking its toll on me, however, and I was starting to have some pain. I just had to deal with it, though, because there wasn't a way for me to get any medication. I wanted to go home!!

Tuesday morning (the 8th), I walked into the NICU and saw this:

A big boy bed!!

Matthew was still doing well and totally stable! I waited around for his doctor to come through and talk with me, but he was doing rounds at another hospital. So, I just hung out there for a while with my baby, and then went in search of a quick breakfast. Seriously, the waiting was horrible! Also, there were a couple of other things that needed to happen before Matthew could go home. First of all, we wanted to have him circumsized, but they couldn't do that until he was stable, so it hadn't happened yet. I received word that my OB was on his way over to do the procedure later that afternoon. Also, Matthew needed to have his hearing screened before he could go home.

Just before lunch, Matthew's doctor called my room and told me the best news ever. Matthew was going home! THAT AFTERNOON!! The doctor was almost as excited as I was, and he promised to come and see us again before Matthew "graduated."

I was so thrilled and so ready to leave with my baby!  I ran around my room, packing up all my things and gathering everything that we needed to take with us. I knew I couldn't take it all with me to the NICU, so I put it all in a pile so we could come back and get it later.

Dr. P came that afternoon and did Matthew's circumcision. I happened to arrive at the NICU just after they had taken him for the procedure, so I spent some more time just waiting. I sent Nathan a message to let him know that we were close, and he started heading back up to the hospital to come and get us. Almost immediately after it was over, a woman showed up to do his hearing screen. At that point, we were just minutes away from being able to leave!

 Matthew's last NICU picture!

Nathan got there, grabbed my stuff from my room, brought the car seat into the NICU, and we were ready to load up our sweet baby and go! At that point, Matthew's doctor came back and saw us. He was so happy that we were able to leave, and asked us if we had any final questions for him. His exact words were, "All of the things that brought Matthew to the NICU are completely resolved, and I have no doubt that he is completely, 100% better." Talk about a huge relief! Hearing that, and knowing that I didn't have to be afraid to take my baby home, helped me to relax to the point that I was almost in tears.

We walked out of there minutes later, carrying our precious baby boy! My heart was bursting, it was so full!

Of course, we had to go and pick up the other kids from the Alexanders' house. We hadn't told them whether or not Matthew was going to come home, and we wanted it to be a surprise. They were definitely surprised! There was a lot of excitement in that house, for sure! The cutest reaction came from Anna. I was certain that she would be upset or unsure about the baby, because she's too young to really understand and she's very attached to me. I didn't need to worry at all. She practically jumped out of her chair and was screaming, "Baby! Baby brother! New baby! Look, Daddy, new baby!!"

 She is so proud of her new brother!

As of today, two weeks later, Matthew is doing just fine. He hasn't had any complications or issues relating to the problems that landed him in the NICU, and it thrills me to see how well he is! He's nursing like a champ, which means we haven't had to use any more formula or bottles, and I got to stop pumping! Yay!

We know how lucky we are to have a healthy baby, and are so thankful that he is better. Things could have gone much differently and could have been so much worse! We are very appreciative of all the doctors and nurses at the hospital who were so instrumental in his healing.

Matthew's Birth Story, Part Three: Complications

Although Matthew's birth had been very fast, it was a perfect experience and there were no complications. Everything seemed to be just fine!

After the nurses' initially assessed Matthew, they noticed that he was grunting, which can be a sign of respiratory issues. It was assumed that he had aspirated some amniotic fluid (and also some meconium, since he'd had a bowel movement in utero), and the quick delivery didn't help because he didn't spend enough time in the birth canal to get it all squeezed out of his lungs. The nurses tried to suction him out really well to help him breathe more easily.

They watched him for a minute or two, and then told me that they would like to put him on my chest for some skin-to-skin contact, to see if that would help him come around a little bit. So, I took him, even though I was still feeling very shaky and weak, and I wasn't sure how well I could hold him. I asked Nathan to stay close to me in case I lost my grip or something. Matthew was crying a bit, I could feel his rapid and shallow breathing, and I could hear him grunting.

I had about fifteen or twenty minutes with him before the nurses took him again and said they wanted to try and suction him again to see if it would help. So, he was out of my arms again. They had him under the warmer and were working with him a little bit, but the decision was finally made to take him to the nursery for closer monitoring. Everyone was acting like it wasn't a big deal, so I didn't think much about it or that he might be in danger. Nathan went with him, so I was left in the room all by myself.

A little while later, Nathan sent me a text message to tell me that Matthew was being moved to the NICU so they could watch him better. The rational part of me knew that if it was truly a big deal, there would have been a major scramble to get him there immediately after he was born. The irrational, postpartum, hormonal part of me was intensely freaking out. Of course, all the worst-case scenarios came quickly to my mind, and I was a bundle of nerves. There wasn't anything I could do, either, because I couldn't get up and around yet and no one was in the room with me. The only thought that kept crossing my mind was that if anything happened to Matthew, if he died, I barely got to hold him at all. I felt so racked with guilt for not paying closer attention to him when he was in my arms, it almost made me sick. How could I have taken those moments for granted? Was I being overdramatic? Maybe, but I couldn't think about anything else. I sat there and struggled to remember exactly how he felt when he was against me, how he smelled, and every little sound that he made.

Nathan came back when they were getting ready to move me to a room in the mother/baby area of the hospital, and told me that he had spoken with Matthew's doctor in the NICU. He seemed encouraging and very nice, and it put my mind at ease a little bit to hear that. There were more issues affecting our baby than we originally thought, but he was being closely monitored.

The NICU charge nurse came in to talk with us both before they moved me, just to give us some information about that area of the hospital, and to be sure that we knew to contact her if we had any questions or problems. Listening to her talking about the NICU made me worry a bit more, because it seemed like Matthew was in a much more serious situation than we originally thought.

Once I was in a room, had spoken with my nurse for the afternoon, and had been up and around a little bit, I was cleared to head down to the NICU to see my baby. Nathan warned me that it was scary. Matthew was hooked up to all kinds of monitors, they had put in a feeding tube, and there was constant noise from alarms. I was scared. I'd never been in a NICU before, and I think it would be upsetting enough to visit one even if your baby wasn't a patient there. As we walked through the hallways and got closer, I became a nervous wreck. I wasn't sure I liked the idea of going in there, but I desperately wanted to see my baby!

Before going in, you have to do a three-minute scrub at a huge, stainless steel sink - something like a surgeon's scrub before surgery. It was weird to have to sanitize myself before visiting my own child. I understood that it wasn't just for my baby, but for the health and safety of the other babies as well. Scrubbing around my IV/saline lock and the four thousand hospital bracelets was a little tough, though.

When we went inside, Matthew was the first baby in the unit to the left. I wasn't totally prepared for what I saw.

My poor little baby.

He looked so helpless and fragile.

Nathan and I stood there with him for a while, because his nurse was busy with another baby, and all we could do was just touch his back and the top of his head. I was watching him breath, and it was so rapid - it really scared me. His whole body was shaking with the effort to get any air. Hearing multiple alarms going off at any given moment, smelling all the different smells in the NICU, listening to the doctors and nurses chattering, trying to figure out what all the numbers on Matthew's screen meant, wondering if my baby was going to come home with us...I was completely overwhelmed. It was too much. And I couldn't pick him up. It was like I had to wait to ask permission to be close to my baby boy, and I wasn't sure what to do with myself. I just stood there in my hospital gown, a total emotional mess.

Finally, the nurse came over to sit down and talk with us about Matthew and all the things that were going on. The first thing she did was tell us that we really shouldn't be touching him. Yes, you read that correctly. We got reprimanded for touching our baby. Now, I know there was a good reason for that (and I'll get into that in a moment), but it really, really upset me a lot. We were allowed to put our hand on his head, but we couldn't rub him or stroke him at all, because it could wake him up, get him excited, and cause him to move around a lot, and they didn't want him to do that. They wanted him to be still and sleep so he could heal.

She told us about all the monitors and things, and what each was for. She explained the numbers as well, and told us the normal ranges for oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, and heart rate. She told us about the oxygen he was receiving through his nasal cannula, explained "flow" to us, and told us what "room air" was. It was nice to have some factual information, but it didn't really make me feel any better.

We got the basic rundown on his condition, which was the following:

1. Matthew had fluid in his lungs (aspirated anmiotic fluid/meconium). His lungs were "sticky" as a result of that, making it difficult to breathe. 

2. He was retracting (he was struggling to take a breath and get his lungs to reopen after he would exhale - you could see him working to inhale because the skin would be pulled tight against his lungs and on his throat).

3. He had a very high respiratory rate (he was having to work really hard to get oxygen and couldn't get his lungs to open well, so he sped up the number of breaths he was taking to compensate). Normal RR for newborns is about 30-60 (I think?), and Matthew's was initially in the 130's and higher.

4. He wasn't getting enough oxygen and had low saturation numbers (for the breaths he was taking, he just wasn't taking in enough oxygen to allow his body to function as it was supposed to, so his oxygen saturation numbers were dropping). 

5. He had a pneumothorax (a hole or tear in one of his lungs from some unknown cause, leaking air into the chest cavity). This showed up on the chest x-rays they did in the NICU, but they weren't sure about the cause. It could have been from Matthew struggling to breathe, or it could have been caused by the meconium (which can cause a sort of chemical burn to the inside of an infant's lungs if inhaled).
6. His blood sugar was low (no big deal and easily resolved, but they still had to watch it).

7. He wasn't maintaining his own body temperature (it was too low, and he had to be under a warmer until it leveled off).

Matthew couldn't be held or touched very much, and they were really limiting his contact with people and trying to keep him quiet. They were afraid if he got excited or started to cry, the pneumothorax would get bigger and he'd have more problems. If too much air leaked into his chest cavity, they would have to insert a needle to allow it to escape. 

The whole time the nurse was talking with us, I was crying. I'm sure she was used to seeing that, but I felt like a huge fool. Honestly, the struggles that Matthew was having were nothing in comparison to some that other families have to deal with, and I felt slightly selfish for being so upset when my child's prognosis was actually very good. However, I had just given birth to him, and I wanted to snuggle him and feed him. This was not how I expected things to be at all, and I was dealing with that, emotionally. 

Matthew's doctor came over at that point to talk with us, and he was an angel, I swear. He was so, so sweet, and he really put my mind at ease very quickly. Basically, he said something like, "All these things are fixable. He's going to be just FINE, eventually. It's just a matter of how long it takes to get there. But don't worry - he's in good hands." 

I told the nurses that I was totally fine with formula feeding, pacifiers, and anything else that they thought he might need to get better. I wanted to breastfeed, obviously, but they wanted his blood sugar to come up, which meant he had to eat something (and my milk wouldn't be in for a couple of days, most likely). I resolved to start pumping as soon as I could to try to get my milk to come in so that I would have a chance at nursing.

We went back to my room, where I finally ordered something to eat (I hadn't had any food all day long and it was already almost dinnertime). Nathan was really encouraging to me, and reinforced all the things the doctor told us to try and calm my worries. It was weird and depressing to be sitting in a mother/baby room, with no baby. I couldn't even care for my baby at that point, so I just had to sit there with nothing to do. We both agreed that the kids shouldn't come up and visit, even though I missed them like crazy and wanted to see them, because it would be hard to explain what was happening and why they couldn't see their brother. I didn't want them to be scared or upset. My parents were taking care of them at that point, and I knew they would do a great job of explaining the situation to them in a way they could understand.

I was feeling pretty good, physically. I was a little sore and cramping a bit, and I did end up tearing during delivery, so my stitches were a little tender. Other than that, I felt okay. Nathan was filling me in on all the things that happened during delivery, and it was good for a laugh or two. Apparently, I managed to spray the OB with all kinds of wonderful "birthing fluids," and she had to go home and change her clothes! Haha! Is it really awful that I didn't feel that badly about it, because she was a little, um, rude? :) Also, I apparently shot blood across the L&D room and hit the wall. Oops!

The rest of the night was filled with restless sleep, random trips to the NICU to check on Matthew, pumping, and lots of visits from nurses and other random hospital staff. As much as I tried to relax, I just couldn't. I wasn't sure what was going to happen next.