First couple of days home-July 9-10, 2008

I don't remember too much about what happened that first day we got home from the hospital. I do remember I had to ride in the back seat with Joshua to make sure he didn't stop breathing or something. I was so nervous to drive alone with him for a few weeks even though Joshua never had any problems. I also remember I got a lot more sleep the next night with Joshua in another room.

The second day I do remember wondering if I was going to have to take Joshua back to the NICU. (I later learned you can't go back to the NICU, he would have gone to Pediatrics had he gone back to the hospital, but I digress). Anyway Joshua was supposed to go no longer than 4 hours without eating. He was sleeping and at 4 hours I tried to wake him up and he would not wake up. It took 30 minutes to get him to wake up. I wasn't sure what I was going to do if he didn't wake up at all.

Fortunately he did wake up but he stayed a sleepy kid.

That next day, my brother came over to visit Joshua. Poor Nathan was the only one from my family that hadn't been able to hold Joshua; Nathan had only seen Joshua once and that was through a window since Nathan was too young to go in the NICU. So he came over to spend some quality uncle/nephew bonding time.

So that was our first full day home with our baby.

NICU Diapers

As I am wrapping up Joshua's time in the NICU I thought I would show some pictures of his diapers. I took the pictures next to a store card (thanks Aubrey for the idea) to show size.

This first one is what I call the little preemie diaper. It is smaller than the preemie diapers that you can buy at the store. They actually have one size smaller that I have seen, but fortunately for Joshua this is the smallest he needed.

Here is wearing the diaper.

He only wore that diaper a few days before he was peeing out of it regularly.

Then he graduated to the preemie diaper that you can buy at the stores.

They had to fold it down because it was so big and to keep it off his belly button.

Then he came home in newborn size diapers.

He had grown into a giant child.

Rooming In and Going Home!

After passing the 24 hour on demand we knew we were on our way home. Because Joshua was coming home with oxygen for feedings we had to stay one more night at the hospital to practice using the oxygen and the monitors. Even though Joshua had not had an apnea or bradacardiac episode in weeks he had to come home with a monitor because he was on the oxygen.

That day Joshua was moved back upstairs into the NICU to make it easier to find him for paperwork and things. They also took out his feeding tube. Brian worked and also worked on getting things ready for Joshua to come home. I hung around the hospital and nursed. That night the oxygen guy came by and showed us how to use everything. Then we were put into the rooming in room.

Before I did the rooming in, I imagined it as we stay in there and if we have problems such as Joshua turning blue or something we have nurses 100 feet away. But every time we fed Joshua, or changed his diaper, or the monitor went off we had to call the nurse. The monitor was really touchy and we hadn't learned how to keep the leads on well yet and an off lead will make it go off. It was disappointing to me because I imagined this as the first night I could take care of my baby, by myself without supervision, and I had to wait one more night for Joshua to be just Brian and mine.

The night spent rooming in was the worst night for sleep that I have ever had with either of my children. The feedings and phone calls were bad enough, but in addition to that Joshua made a ton of noise. Preemies tend to be grunty and he grunted and groaned noisily all night long.

The next morning at 7:00 people started coming into our room to get things ready to grow. After no sleep the night before we were moving kind of slow that morning, not to mention Joshua still needed to be taken care of, and one nurse openly wondered why we were going so slow. But the nurses also gave us this adorable card and wished Joshua a happy 2 month birthday. Joshua was in the NICU exactly 2 months or 61 days going home July 9, 2008.

We spent the morning filling out a ton of paper work. Then we waited, and waited, and waited for the pediatrician to give us the clear to leave. Finally someone that wasn't Joshua's pediatrician came and signed the paper work for us to leave.

Then we could finally leave. A nurse has to carry the baby carrier out to the car*, and then I had to ride in the back seat with Joshua to make sure he didn't stop breathing or something. And we were finally free.

*When Minna was born they had me carry her out of the hospital myself when I had given birth 3 days earlier and was being discharged myself.

Going home really soon

We moved downstairs on July 4th a Friday, that Sunday we moved to nursing 4 times a day with two feedings back to back. I knew we were getting close to going home, I figured it was going to be towards the end of the week and I had plans early in the week to finish getting things ready. I needed to go grocery shopping; collect the milk I had stored at the hospital, in my sister's freezer, in my parent's freezer, and my freezer and take it to a meat locker, and clean my house.

Monday the 7th I got there and found out that Joshua was "on demand" which means he gets to pick when he eats as long as he eats every 2-4 hours for 12 hours. He didn't get to sleep through any feedings and get feeding tube he had to take them all orally. If he did well I found out we would continue through the night to make it a 24 hour trial.

So I cancelled my plans for the day and moved into the hospital. I did leave Brian in charge to do a bottle when I gathered up the milk. At the end of the 12 hours Joshua had barely squeaked by, and I figured that we would try it again tomorrow. But I think they were sick of having us in the hospital because they kept us going that night. Brian went home to get some clothes and things and we moved into a room they have for parents in the hospital.

Things went well that night, maybe because I was less stressed because I was so tired. I did enjoy the night nurse sharing stories with me while I nursed. We passed that night so they took out Joshua's feeding tube and he had to make it through one more night that he would stay in the room with us. But rooming in deserves a post of its own. But this is where we finally realized we were really going home.

The move downstairs

We were really lucky for a few weeks in the NICU because Joshua was in an isolation room, but not to be isolated, just we had some privacy because he had his own room. It was approaching July 4th and the nurses said that if we were still there for the 4th of July, that we could see stadium of fire fireworks really well out the window of his room.

Well the NICU was getting really crowded and so some of the older babies that were close to going home were sent downstairs to some extra rooms in the Pediatric ward. The babies were still considered part of the NICU and still had NICU nurses but they were just in overflow. Anyway July 3rd Joshua got moved downstairs into the overflow. He went from having his own room, to having 3 babies in a little bit larger room. These were all babies who were going soon, so they were involved with the chaos in trying to get them out.

It made things a little more difficult for a few reasons. One reason was Joshua was already needing to sleep so much to make up for the fact he was almost anemic, but with the craziness going on he was sleeping less, so when I tried to nurse him he would fall asleep, or later when he was being nursed round the clock he wouldn't wake up when he was supposed to. Also it was hard for Brian and me because we were isolated from our friends in the NICU community.

It was annoying but we couldn't complain too much since we were so close to going home.

Car Seat Trial

When you have a baby in the NICU one of the most exciting things you get to do is the car seat trial. It is exciting because you know the baby is coming home soon, because if the baby is going to be staying in the hospital a lot longer there is no reason to put him in a car seat.

The purpose of the car seat trial is to make sure the baby can still breath okay while sitting in the car seat. The car seat positions the baby differently and sometimes preemies have a hard time.

Joshua did great, the test is for an hour, but he was there for 3 or 4 hours with no problems. (He was there so long because they had an issue with the computer to record the test, and then he fell asleep, so they didn't want to move him).

We thought Joshua was getting so big, he seemed like the NICU giant at 6 pounds, and then we put him in his car seat and he looked so tiny.

And here he is just enjoying a meal through the trial.

And just for kicks here is a picture of his sister Minna almost 2 years later when she was getting ready to go home. She is about 5 pounds here and seems much shorter. She also seems to have some bad feelings about getting in the car seat.

No Oxygen

It is always exciting in the NICU to get rid of another cord or tube. It signifies the baby is starting to be free to live on his own.

We were thinking Joshua would be off his oxygen for a couple of weeks there and he was making us anxious to be done with it. His alarms would beep the good way if it was on, but if they took him off the oxygen completely he could only go a few hours until he would need the oxygen again. They ended up turning the oxygen part down to just room air and leaving the tiniest amount of flow going, and that worked, until one day he was finally able to be like this:

Look how smug he looks just having his feeding tube in, and the giant binky.

Coming off the oxygen did cause some feeding issues, but the freedom was wonderful.

Jammies

While Joshua was in the NICU we just bought him onsies because they were easiest to get around all the tubes and wires and because he never went anywhere anyway. But I have a thing for babies in sleepers so one night Joshua got chilly after a bath and so they put him in one of the sleepers the NICU had. I had to take a picture because he was so cute.

Brian the early dad

I found these pictures of Joshua and Brian and I thought they were amazing. Not the photography itself, that isn't great, but the love you can see between the two of them. So I thought I would dedicate a post to what Brian did while Joshua was in the NICU. And put in the pictures how they fit or just randomly if they don't.
When Joshua was born I quit working, my poor boss got two days notice, and that was only because Joshua was born on a Friday, and I wasn't supposed to be at work again until Monday. Fortunately Brian had a decent college job that would pay our bills to tide us over the summer until he started his real job. The plan was for us to save up some money during my last trimester when both of us would be working decent amounts so we could have some money for the baby and Brian could take some time off. Well Joshua through a loop in those plans. We had some savings, but we also knew that there would be a three week gap between Brian's jobs and we had to get ourselves across the country so we didn't want to dip too much into that. So Brian hardly took anytime off while Joshua was in the NICU.

Fortunately Brian had a job where he could do most of his work from our laptop, so he would come to the hospital with me and work there almost everyday. Brian spent an incredible amount of time at the hospital each day probably over 10 hours on weekdays between working and actually visiting Joshua. I remember he said once that being at a hospital that much was kind of depressing, but he still did it. Even though I spent more actual time with Joshua, I would be in and out, and in the pumping room, but the staff knew where to find Brian. Everyday the doctor would call or talk to the parents of the babies, and he would usually just go down the the parent's room to talk to Brian.

Brian would also help me with the pumpings. When we were at home he would drag the heavy hospital pump to where ever I wanted to be for the pumping. He would also get up in the middle of the night every night to help me get the pump stuff all assembled and the milk put up in the end, so that the whole process would go faster and I could get back to sleep faster.

Joshua would always have this content look on his face when Brian held him. I would envy Brian sometimes towards the end when my visits with Joshua revolved around trying to get him to nurse. It seemed like Brian was able to just enjoy him more sometimes.

I love this picture too, it looks like they are hugging.

Letting Others hold Joshua

For the first month or so Joshua was in the NICU we were only allowed to hold him twice a day. So I would hold Joshua in the morning and Brian would hold him in the evening. We wouldn't let anyone else hold him because we felt like we as his parents should get to hold him every day. We never asked for extra holdings for him because he had such a rough time before.

Then sometime around Memorial Day they said that we could hold him a third time. I held him the extra times for the first few days and he did great. Brian and I decided that someone else could hold Joshua. My parents were out of town on an anniversary trip, so we called my sister Heather and asked her if she would want to come hold him. Heather was the first person besides Brian and I, and the NICU staff to be able to hold Joshua. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of it.

I am pretty sure at some point Emily came and held him at some point, but I don't have a picture of it, and I don't remember. Sorry Emily. Nathan wasn't allowed in the NICU at all because he was too young. You had to be sixteen to go in and Nathan was only 12. The closest he got to Joshua, is once Joshua's area was by a window to the hall, so Nathan came and the nurse picked Joshua up and held him up to the window so Nathan could see. Poor Nathan.

When my parents came back they were able to come hold Joshua too. The first picture I have is with my dad holding Joshua.

The next picture is with my mom holding Joshua. The one with my mom is taken later, it must not be the first time she held Joshua, because I am pretty sure she held him before my dad.

On a side note, my parents were very supportive when Joshua was in the NICU. They visited him all the time and even went to the "You have a baby in the NICU class" a couple of weeks before Brian and I made it there. Then after over a month of waiting they were finally able to hold their first grandbaby.

Zacky

Brian is working swings today so it is time for my updating Joshua's NICU story. This is short and sweet.

In the NICU they have these pillow things that look like hands, and they are made to have the weight and feel of a hand too. The pillow is called a Zacky. The Zacky is supposed to make the baby sleep better or whatnot. I don't really know if it helped Joshua sleep or not, but we liked to put it on him. He didn't get to bring it home though, so here is our picture of him sleeping with the Zacky.