Thursday, July 15, 2010
Bath fun time!
Here are some assortments of bath time fun time pictures. We still give him bath's in the sink once he can sit up we'll move to the bath tub.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Warren's Home!
Warren came home today! He now weigh's 4 lbs 6 ounces and is almost 18 inches long. He spent a total of 45 days in the NICU. We are a little nervous because we wont have any monitors or nurses to be there but we know we can handle it. Bob is taking the week off of work so that we can try to get into some kind of routine. I am so thankful for the nurses at St. Joseph Mercy Oakland. Without them I wouldn't be bringing home a healthy little baby boy. I also wanted to mention that he is coming home about 5 weeks before his due date :-) Below is a picture of him in his first car seat ride!
He also came home sleeping inside his pack and play. Still too little to be in his "sleeper" and his crib is just too far away from us right now...so he is in our room. 
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Life in the NICU
Life in the NICU...where do I begin??
It is a place that is so peaceful yet so scary all at the same time. There is a phone outside the NICU and before you can go in you have to call to make sure that it is ok for you to enter. Then once inside you have to scrub down your hands up to your elbows. They recommend scrubbing for 3 minutes to make sure that all of the germs are gone. Then you have to wear a gown to cover your clothes. Once inside there are a bunch of isolette's with little teeny tiny babies inside. With worried parents sitting and staring through the plastic wall of the isolette praying for their little ones to get better. Some are in open cribs but most are confined to an isolette. Each baby has their own space. Their own cart with diapers, wipes, wash cloths, clothes (if they are wearing them yet), blankets and all of their medical supplies. Each baby has their own monitor as well and that can be one of the scariest sounds you hear while you are in the NICU. The sound of an alarm going off always makes you feel a pit in your stomach. Most of the time the babies are ok and recover on their own but there are times when they need extra medical attention.
It's hard to describe the first time I entered the NICU, it was all so scary. I really didn't know what to expect. Since I was on bed rest for so long I had Bob take me by wheelchair so that I could see my little baby for the first time. It was overwhelming at first. Seeing such a tiny little baby hooked up to IV's, on a ventilator and a bunch of wires hooked up to so many different things. His very first nurse, Sue, came over to tell us everything that was going on. It was a lot to take in but thankfully she was very patient and helped us understand every part of his care plan. Then I just sat there and looked. I wasn't able to hold my own baby at first because he was in such a fragile medical state. It wasn't until the next day when the nurse said that I could hold him for 30 minutes max.
The first time I held him was intimidating. Here was this little 2 lb baby that was mine but yet felt like he wasn't. The 30 minutes flew by and thankfully he did great. Then it was time for me to go home without my baby. Needless to say I cried and the nurse took a picture of him so that I could take it home with me and then it was time to leave. Insurance was only going to allow me to stay 2 days after giving birth and my 2 days were up. Leaving the hospital that day was so incredibly hard. I felt like I was in a fog, just going through the motions.
Everyday after that got easier. Warren was getting bigger and stronger everyday. By day 3 he was already off of oxygen and they were starting him on feeds of my breast milk. I still wasn't allowed to hold him unless I had permission from a nurse first. Some nurses were better than others and would let me hold him for as long as possible, some would only let me hold him for 30-60 minutes. It really depended on the nurse. My favorite thing to do was Kangaroo care. They would slip Warren right inside of my shirt and we would just hang out for as long as possible and it always just felt so right.
Another hard part was leaving him every night. Walking out alone without my baby. Leaving the mother/baby floor empty. Deep down inside I knew that the best place for him was the NICU but it was still so hard to leave him.
I went to the NICU everyday. I would run errands and get things done around the house in the morning and then after rounds I would go in, around 12 pm everyday. Then I would stay all day until 6 pm when it was shift change and everyone had to leave the NICU. Occasionally I would go back again in the evening with Bob but most nights I would just call as often as I wanted. Somehow we both survived 45 long days without living in the same house together but we made it. We finally brought him home on July 5, 2010 which was one of the happiest days of our lives.
It is a place that is so peaceful yet so scary all at the same time. There is a phone outside the NICU and before you can go in you have to call to make sure that it is ok for you to enter. Then once inside you have to scrub down your hands up to your elbows. They recommend scrubbing for 3 minutes to make sure that all of the germs are gone. Then you have to wear a gown to cover your clothes. Once inside there are a bunch of isolette's with little teeny tiny babies inside. With worried parents sitting and staring through the plastic wall of the isolette praying for their little ones to get better. Some are in open cribs but most are confined to an isolette. Each baby has their own space. Their own cart with diapers, wipes, wash cloths, clothes (if they are wearing them yet), blankets and all of their medical supplies. Each baby has their own monitor as well and that can be one of the scariest sounds you hear while you are in the NICU. The sound of an alarm going off always makes you feel a pit in your stomach. Most of the time the babies are ok and recover on their own but there are times when they need extra medical attention.
It's hard to describe the first time I entered the NICU, it was all so scary. I really didn't know what to expect. Since I was on bed rest for so long I had Bob take me by wheelchair so that I could see my little baby for the first time. It was overwhelming at first. Seeing such a tiny little baby hooked up to IV's, on a ventilator and a bunch of wires hooked up to so many different things. His very first nurse, Sue, came over to tell us everything that was going on. It was a lot to take in but thankfully she was very patient and helped us understand every part of his care plan. Then I just sat there and looked. I wasn't able to hold my own baby at first because he was in such a fragile medical state. It wasn't until the next day when the nurse said that I could hold him for 30 minutes max.
The first time I held him was intimidating. Here was this little 2 lb baby that was mine but yet felt like he wasn't. The 30 minutes flew by and thankfully he did great. Then it was time for me to go home without my baby. Needless to say I cried and the nurse took a picture of him so that I could take it home with me and then it was time to leave. Insurance was only going to allow me to stay 2 days after giving birth and my 2 days were up. Leaving the hospital that day was so incredibly hard. I felt like I was in a fog, just going through the motions.
Everyday after that got easier. Warren was getting bigger and stronger everyday. By day 3 he was already off of oxygen and they were starting him on feeds of my breast milk. I still wasn't allowed to hold him unless I had permission from a nurse first. Some nurses were better than others and would let me hold him for as long as possible, some would only let me hold him for 30-60 minutes. It really depended on the nurse. My favorite thing to do was Kangaroo care. They would slip Warren right inside of my shirt and we would just hang out for as long as possible and it always just felt so right.
Another hard part was leaving him every night. Walking out alone without my baby. Leaving the mother/baby floor empty. Deep down inside I knew that the best place for him was the NICU but it was still so hard to leave him.
I went to the NICU everyday. I would run errands and get things done around the house in the morning and then after rounds I would go in, around 12 pm everyday. Then I would stay all day until 6 pm when it was shift change and everyone had to leave the NICU. Occasionally I would go back again in the evening with Bob but most nights I would just call as often as I wanted. Somehow we both survived 45 long days without living in the same house together but we made it. We finally brought him home on July 5, 2010 which was one of the happiest days of our lives.
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