This past month Has been the hardest, and best month of my life. Each day that would tick by in the nicu I feared I would miss out on my babies whole newborn life. We went through so much together in that time, but I always feared what I was missing when we were apart. I would show up in the middle of the night, worried he was awake and I wouldn't be there, to find a sweet sleeping baby, only to return the next day to nurses spreading word that I was there so long and late, that I had to have "the postpartum depression talk" by several nurses.
"Nervousness and sleeplessness is a sign of postpartum depression, what is something YOOOU like to do?"
But in fact it was the opposite. I wasn't depressed while I was with my baby, it was when I left. I felt guilt, I missed him, I just wanted to be a normal mom. I dreamt of the day we would be looking At each other, just laying in bed.
Then, just when I was giving up hope, the day came. I woke up around 4am to pump, and had a text from Shelby, one of our absolute favorite nurses.
It included a picture with the words
"P.s Treg is killing it! He has already taken 155(ml)!"
I woke jordan up to show him, I was thrilled!!!
So they began a 12 hour trial to see how much he would eat if he was only eating by mouth. And the 12 hour changed to 24, then 48....
"We could order one more eco and have it done today, we just weren't expecting him to go home this soon, what was his weight?"
That was my son they were taking about at rounds, i dreamt of that day when I would hear the doctors come by his crib for rounds, and actually speak about the possibility of going home.
We stayed the night in the parents lounge with the baby to make sure we could handle all his needs on our own. We didn't sleep a wink that night. We were so nervous, his monitor kept going off. It was his respiratory rate alarm. We knew enough from our long days at the hospital that it didn't matter much, but after 5 hours of it going off we decided we better tell the nurse. We really didn't want to tell her, we didn't want anything to be the one thing to keep him in the hospital.
I went across the hall in my slippers and pajamas to grab his nurse in the nicu.
"His alarm has been going off for a few hours, would you come look at him?"
She followed me back, looked at his monitor.
"I am so sorry, they were supposed to turn that alarm off! It doesn't matter at all! Hope you didn't lose too much sleep!"
When we pulled out of the hospital parking garage that next afternoon i cried. We felt so blessed and lucky, we actually get to take our little one home!!
The days that followed were certainly nerve wrecking, we brought Treg home on oxygen, and a pulse oximeter. Every time
That thing would ding in the middle of the night jordan and I would both jump up and run over to his crib side, panicked. Because my little guy is so tiny for his gestational age the doctors are very concerned about his minimum caloric intake. So waking Treg up every 3 hours to eat was a necessity. So 11pm, 2am, 5am, all those ungodly hours we were up; feeding him. I can't deny I shed quite a few tears in those late hours because of frustration. I was so worried we would have to check back into the nicu. You see, babies should not be trying to eat their full volume of bottles for more than 30 minutes, because at that point they are burning more calories than they are taking in. And Treg was at times taking an hour to eat. He has such low muscle tone, because of Down syndrome it really just wore him out to suck on those bottles. But I was torn, if we just quit, he would starve. Each time he couldn't finish a bottle I felt incredible guilt telling jordan he didn't finish, and I know he felt the same. So Sunday night we decided if he couldn't eat through the night, we would call the doctor. We knew calling the doctor would most likely result in a tube surgically placed in Tregs belly so we could feed him, and that was a very scary thought.
11pm came around, and he fell asleep after half a bottle.
2am came around, and I woke him up and took him into his nursery to eat.
I held the bottle to his mouth, and began crying. It had only been an hour and a half since he last ate. That was one of the more difficult things about his eating. He needed to eat every three hours, but it took him so long that we were sleeping for an hour and a half, and then waking to eat again. I was delirious, and so worried.
"God please, if It is in your will, help us finish this bottle."
I cried out loud.
I composed myself, feeling a little guilty i was crying. I promised myself all the way back when i found out that Treg had Down syndrome i would never cry because of his set backs; that i would never do him the disservice of feeling bad for myself because of the way he is. So i held the bottle to his mouth again. Thirty minutes later, the bottle was done. I couldn't believe my eyes. I felt around his swaddle to see if it had just leaked out the bottle, it hadn't. I hurried and warmed another bottle, and he ate half of that.
TODAY WAS THE NEW BEST DAY
I woke jordan up because I was just too excited.
"He took a bottle and a half, and he did it really fast!!"
We were both so happy.
Jordan woke up at 5 to feed him again, and the same thing happened, and every time he has eaten since.
I don't know why the Lord has chosen us to give all his miracles to, but I look at our life, and all I can see is lessons and blessings.
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