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.