Month: August 2008

Ike-a-saurus


I am impatiently waiting for the kids to get settled into bed so that my husband and I can go back to the NICU.

Isaac has been squirmy and crying today -much like his mama! I don’t think anyone is worried about his grouchiness other than me.

He’s been on his belly soaking up the bili lights and I’m wondering if I can bring in a small radio so he can relax and listen to the Horns whoop up on Florida Atlantic.

It’s funny that even as the days pass I still have a hard time believing Isaac is here and that I’m not pregnant anymore. I should still be pregnant.

It feels like he is not real or something. Does that sound strange? It doesn’t diminish my loving and aching and worrying about him, but I still have a hard time understanding that when I say his name I am talking about my own child. I am having a hard time reconciling that this is our situation – we are actually doing this. NICU, micro-preemie, the whole thing. It is somehow too real and not real all at the same time.

And man is my temper short. I don’t want to wait for things or people, I don’t want to still have to depend on everyone for everything. The exhaustion is pissing me off.

We are in the car now, off to the hoppital (as the wee-er one calls it). My pain meds made me nauseous so I am waiting for them to wear off and I am avoiding taking more. Probably not smart but the anti-nausea zofran is $430 for 10 pills so I will ache. I might as well have my insides and my outsides all be achy together.

On that note, I am not as baby-bluesy as I sound, just tired and impatient.

Ike awaits me. I can’t wait to get there and touch his fuzzy head.

Click click click


In the next few minutes I’ll be on my way home after 36 days in the hospital. We have at least two carts worth of stuff.

It’s bittersweet to be leaving the Ike-a-saurus here and it makes me really sad. We’ll be back tonight to be with him, though.

Home!

Did you hear that?!

HOME!

I can’t believe it. I can’t believe any of this.

Well, I’m tired

Still in the hospital, but hopefully for not much longer. I am just so tired. I can’t get enough rest. I’m sure it has something to do with having surgery after having been on bedrest for sooooooo long.

It’s also the pumping every 2-3 hours. I am starting to not like the pumping. I love that I’m able to pump and that my milk is in, or at least is coming in. But I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I never had to pump with my other pregnancies and so now I don’t know if I should pump until I’m empty or only pump for 15 or 20 minutes and then stop, or what. I need to find a good lactation consultant who specializes in super early babies. I am scared of getting all plugged up and/or getting mastitis. I can’t get sick because if I’m sick I can’t go to the NICU.

Also, I am stunningly short-tempered right now. Impatient, grouchy and not taking shit from anyone. I think all of my pent-up feelings about this whole situation are flooding out of me on a nice wave of postpartum emotion. It is not fun for people in the same room with me. So much crying. But maybe it will stop now that my milk is mostly in.

Enough about me.

Ike-a-saurus is on the nasal canula now, which is super fantastic. They keep saying he could destabilize at any minute, but for now, Yay! Canula! He still isn’t really digesting any of the expressed milk they put in his tummy, but the concern is not "Oh shit!" It’s more like a frustrated "crap!" Though we were told today that a 28-week baby isn’t ready to digest anything so it’s not a surprise or a major concern that the milk is staying put. It’s just a test to give him some digesting practice. Hopefully the practice will pay off.

I am beyond exhausted. I’m sure he is, too.

Roar!

When I told the wee one his brother’s name, we were talking on the phone and I was drugged to the gills with a variety of pain meds and flat exhausted. The wee one was having a hard time understanding me. Our conversation went something like:

HIM: What’s his name?
ME: Isaac Sawyer
HIM: What?!
ME: Isaac Sawyer!
HIM: Ike-a-saurus?
ME: (cringing in pain from laughing) Yes! You got it! Ike-a-saurus!

We were up to see Ike-a-saurus late last night. All of the incubators get covered like bird cages so the babies can sleep. We lifted his giraffe-patterned cover and peeked in at him. He was wiggling like crazy, I think having heard our voices.

He was grabbing at the CPAP and not thrilled with the feeding tube down his throat. I was thrilled to see the tube, though. Thrilled to know that the itty bitty cc’s of colostrum I’ve been pumping every two hours all day and all night, are going into his itty bitty tummy. Apparently this is a big step because these tiny guys have immature intestines that are prone to blockages and infections. So fingers crossed that his tummy is just as strong as the rest of him.

Ike-a-saurus Roy.
The most perfect name ever!
The wee one is wise.

And he’s here!


Isaac Sawyer Roy was born at 11:50am this morning, 8/25/08. He weighs 2lbs 5 oz and was born at 28 weeks 2 days gestation.

We are thrilled and scared and ask for all your prayers and good thoughts.

They will need the next few days to really assess his lungs, and he is on a ventilator. But we heard him cry just after he was born, so that was wonderful.

It’s been a surreal day and I am alternating highs from hormones and loopiness from pain meds, but it is not the drugs talking when I say thank-you to each and every one if you… Friends, strangers, lurkers, everyone. Your support and love and kindness and worry has propelled me through these past eight weeks and it continues to help as I grapple with what’s to come in the NICU. The scary part is just now starting, but knowing you all are out there pulling for us is a tremendous thing.

What a day!

oversharing?

I am on the hospital’s wireless network right now and a shared iTunes library has just shown up in my iTunes.

The title?

"Les Breeding’s library"

Is this some poor dad’s cry for help or just a hilarious coincidence? The abundance of Ace of Base songs and Camus books in his library make me worry for him.

####

The more I think about this, the funnier it gets. I’d like to create some companion iTunes libraries to show up with Les Breeding on the L&D floor.

E. Nuff Gushing III’s library

Maura Contra-Ceptzione’s library

Manny A. Child’s library

Thora Butt’s library

I could do this forever, I think.

Prom Queen

I don’t think I’ve ever posted the official diagnosis of what’s going on with my embattled self. It’s called PROM, or pPROM. Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes. (AKA: The Thing That Happens To Pregnant Women That Really Fucking Sucks A Whole Lot And That Is Scarier Than Anything You Could Ever Imagine, or TTTHTPWTRFSAWLATISTAYCEI. PROM is way easier to remember, though.)

Whenever the nurses leave the computer monitor on in my room and I can sneak a peek at the other patients (never any names, just room numbers, how dilated they are, who their doctor is and what status their membranes are in) I search in vain for other PROM patients. There are SROMs (spontaneous rupture – that’s at full term, I think) and AROMs (assisted rupture) but never any other PROMs. That’s good for the other pregnant people in the world.

Once there was a BBOW and I had to look it up on google because I didn’t know what it was. Bulging Bag of Waters in case you’re interested. That’s not a good one to have when you’re 18 weeks like she was. Though at a different time a nurse told me a great story about a woman who had BBOW at 19 weeks, was checked into the hospital and basically hung upside down like a bat for ELEVEN WEEKS until her baby was born perfectly healthy. Apparently, this BBOW lady had some gigantor boobs that practically smothered her the entire time she was upside down. So, yeah, at least my boobs aren’t trying to suffocate me through all of this.

I was just sitting here wondering, other than being killed by boobs, what other situation would be yucky enough to make me happy to be in my situation. Being forced to run a marathon in China would qualify, I think. But more aptly, I started wondering which was worse, this PROM or my high school prom.

PROM – minute-by-minute life and death uncertainty
prom – minute-by-minute boy catastrophes

PROM – gigantic blood-type cross and screen bracelet strapped on wrist
prom – gigantic perfume-sprayed white flower strapped on wrist

PROM – stuck in bed with a view of a rooftop pipe thing
prom – stuck in Mazda with a view of the driver’s hash pipe thing

PROM – encouraged to  dull my senses with sleeping pills and screechy uterine monitoring devices
prom – encouraged to dull my senses with pot and screechy Mariah Carey slow dances

PROM – healthcare costs astronomical
prom – hair care costs astronomical

PROM – unpredictable gushing of various body fluids
prom – unpredictable gushing of various body fluids

PROM – gown is air-conditioned in the back
prom – gown was tight and hot

As you can see, it’s really a toss up. I’m going to have to go with PROM for being shittier. Though at least now I can wear comfortable clothes and I don’t have to fuss with a strapless push up bra.

27 weeks 3 days. That’s where we are today. Sunday night was another "oh shit, is it time?" night, with contractions 3-6 minutes apart for hours and hours. But we made it through.

Even a Mazda and a hash pipe couldn’t make this chaos more insane.

tick tock tick tock

Today is my three week "anniversary" of being in the hospital. At $1,000 a day (that’s the low estimate) just think of what I could have been doing instead.

But, really, who needs the Four Seasons on Maui when it comes to brewing up a little baby for three more weeks than anyone expected. My view might not be great, the food might be fairly tragic, my mood may often be even worse, but this is the place for me.

As many sleeping pills as you want (equally as many stool softeners, if you’re into that), some opiates for good measure on the really bad days (which, by the way, SUCK. Fuck that opiate noise), and some exciting heart-racing tocolytics to keep the contractions at bay… it’s a pharmaceutical lollapalooza. Though, admittedly, I decline pretty much everything. What would happen if I took an Ambien and then sleepwalked out of my room and drove around town and tried to make out with strangers? The commercials warn of these things, you know. Mostly, though, I hate the Ambien hangover.

There are always friendly people peeking into my underpants, and asking about my kids (sometimes at the same time!). The TV works. There’s an OT lady intent on making me paint a ceiling tile. And there is constant hammering and drilling because the L&D floor is under construction. What’s not to love, really?

Morgan, Laura, Laura II, Summer, LaRhonda, Melissa, Kristin, Katherine, Christine, Mary Lou, Bertha, Jennifer, Becky, Julie, Stephanie, Jenny (the best person to give shots ever) and many, many more who’s names I can’t remember. These have all been my nurses, and they’ve all been very nice. There was the one exception of Super Chatty Nurse telling me all about her dog’s strangulated testicle and her own loss of a 20-something week twin, and another exception of Nurse Who Made Me Pee In A Bedpan Because She Was Freaking Out, but really, they’ve all been nice.

And it’s nice to know that when things start spiraling into OH SHIT, they are here to help. It’s also fun to talk to them about their kickball team. A nice distraction when you’re getting 6 terb shots.

Yesterday was not a great day for me emotionally. The wee-er one has entered the "why" stage and she said "Mommy come?" when it was time for her to leave. I said I couldn’t and then the "whys" started. It made me very, very sad. She will grab my arm and say "Mommy come now?" and it is all I can do to keep it together. I have come up with a story about magnets in my butt that won’t let me leave the bed. Kind of ridiculous, but it makes her laugh when I pretend to struggle against them.

Of all the struggles, why is the pretend one the hardest?