The rollercoaster ride begins

Yesterday for the first several hours they only let me have clear liquids. I had two containers of jello, five popsicles, water, and cranberry juice. Then they let me have some pretzels and dry cereal. At dinner (12.5 hours after he was born), they let me eat "real" food. They hadn't located my menus, but I was fine with the "house" diet yesterday of spaghetti with meatballs, a breadstick, veggies, and pears. Later in the evening I asked for some chocolate ice cream. They were out of chocolate, but I did have a little container of vanilla ice cream. Paul ate my breakfast and lunch trays yesterday since I was on a clear liquid diet. They found my menus, and this morning I got what I had ordered. I love the egg and cheese bagel that they make in the cafe as well as the fruit and yogurt parfait. I wish I had known several weeks ago that we could order from the cafe. Better late than never. I'll be eating in the cafe for several more weeks, but I'll have to start paying for my food after I'm discharged. I can continue to join the antepartum ladies for lunch on Fridays as an "alum." The only change I wish I could make to those menus I filled out would be to ask for some of the chocolate desserts. I filled them out assuming I would be pregnant the whole week. The woman who is the hostess for both the antepartum unit and labor and delivery called me on the phone this morning! I was really touched because she is on vacation this week. The hostess for the maternity unit told her that I had given birth. This shows how much she cares about the patients she serves.

I am planning to go home on Saturday so I can attend Nadia's musical, and I already told Paul I want to stop at a Friendly's on the way home and share a brownie sundae with Nadia. I can't remember the last time I went this many months without eating a brownie! I wish Oliver was still in my womb, but one perk of his early arrival is that my days of having heartburn have ended sooner than expected! I had been taking Pepcid every 12 hours lately, and sometimes that wasn't enough. One thing that's different about the food service in this unit compared with the other 3 units I've been in here is that they give you "real" (not plastic) silverware with each meal.

Around 8:00am they unhooked me from the IV, which meant the morphine ended. Now I'm allowed to have Percocet if I want it. I had one so far. After breakfast, they removed the catheter. They were going to take it out last night, but I asked if we could wait until the iv was unhooked because I have to go to the bathroom SO frequently when I'm on an iv, and getting out bed isn't easy right after a c-section. I still have the iv tubes in both arms, but they told me I won't be needing another transfusion - just iron for anemia.

I called the insurance to see if they would pay for Oliver to be transported to Geisinger, and they won't because it's not medically necessary. If he needed to go to Hershey, they would pay for that because Hershey is a level 3C NICU, but Geisinger is at the same exact level (3B) as this one so they won't pay, and it's very expensive to transport him by ambulance (at least $2,000). They don't have a Ronald McDonald House here in Harrisburg. They have a "Bailey House" but evidently you can only stay there for 2-3 nights at a time. It's not meant for long term stays. I put in a call to see if they have any availability starting on Sunday night. I am torn what to do. I should be able to start holding him by the end of the week, and I know "kangaroo care" (skin to skin contact) is very beneficial for the baby (and something I am greatly desiring as well). Once he is able to nurse, I will definitely want to be nearby as I'll want to nurse him every 3 hours round the clock. Of course I miss Nadia and Ian also, so I feel torn during this time when I can't yet nurse Oliver, yet I don't want to leave him all by himself (no family near by). Once I'm nursing him I might just go the "homeless" route again and sleep in the lounge in between feedings. I did that with Ian. At this hospital once the child is able to drink from a bottle, they won't agree to keeping in the NG tube like they would do at Geisinger if a parent requested. I'm really hoping that once they deem him capable of drinking from a bottle that he'll be able to nurse so we can skip the bottle sage.

The first time I went to the NICU today I brought my camera, but I forgot my memory card so that didn't do any good. I did remember the second time to bring the camera and card, but I wish I had remembered the first time because he was on the SiPAP and at one point the nurse took everything off his head/face so I wish I had been able to snap a photo. His hair is darker than I expected based on what the first NICU doctor told me when I was in the recovery room (she called his hair "light"). Both Ian and Nadia were born with dark brown hair. That hair fell out and the new hair was blonde. We shall see if the same happens with Oliver. With everything off his face, I thought he definitely resembled Paul/Nadia far more than Ian/me. Shannon (one of his NICU nurses) has a 1 year old son named Oliver (his twin's name is Wyatt) so she has no trouble remembering my son's name! The NICU here is far less noisy than the one at Geisinger, and the doctors spend FAR more time interacting with the parents. At GMC I was lucky if I got even 4 minutes a day with a doctor whereas here they have gone out of their way to seek me out (even come up to my hopsital room twice today). Every time I've been in the NICU a doctor has come and talked to me at his bedside. That's really nice. Their enrollment is low at the moment so Oliver has his own private nurse.

The medical challenges of the day included having a PICC line put in (which they had to reposition three times -they kept doing xrays to make sure it wasn't going into his heart) as well as going from the SiPAP back to the ventilator because he has pulmonary hyptertension. There also is something in his heart that's supposed to close after birth that is still open, but they're going to leave that be for now in the hopes it will close on its own. They also gave him his second surfactant treatment. Also, in his brain he either has a small cyst or has the remnants of a small brain bleed. Needless to say all this information was overwhelming, especially as I don't have a medical background and couldn't understand everything albeit they were definitely trying to describe things in layman's terms. On top of that, my legs/feet have started to swell. I knew that was coming from prior experience, but it's still very uncomfortable, and they ripped the big bandage off my belly today which hurt a lot. Plus pumping is painful at this stage of the game, and it feels pointless (although I know it's not) since my milk hasn't come in yet. Once that becomes less painful and seems more productive, that will be a big encouragement. They are processing the paperwork so the insurance will pay for me to rent a pump from the hospital, which is nice as I sold my Pump in Style that I bought in 2004 at a yard sale in 2011. More than anything, I want to hold Oliver. At the most I should have to wait six more days to hold him, and I probably won't have to wait that long. I know once I hold him it means they'll have to start pricking his heels for all his bloodwork. I do see the advantage of the arterial line. He kept getting pretty worked up every time they did something (x-ray, echocardiogram, etc.) so they gave him a sedative to calm him down (the same one - Versed, that they gave Ian prior to his first two surgeries). I feel badly that Oliver's entrance into the world has to be so stressful. It pains me to watch him cry and not be able to comfort him. My poor little boy. I know he's not a micro preemie, but at 3 pounds he still seems very small. I wish I could hit a fast forward button and arrive at the point when we're all home as a family of five. We have some preemie clothing at home since that's what Nadia and Ian started in, but I'm thinking I might need to buy some smaller size preemie clothing for a 3 pounder as my other two never dropped below 5 pounds.

P.S. The pictures of Ian, Nadia, and my sister Yvonne and her family were taken by my sister Wendy.