The NICU

It is amazing the things you think about at 5:30 in the morning while feeding a baby. This time it was a very clear thought that I need to write down our NICU experience with Makayla. I was thinking about all the little details of the NICU and I realized that if I don't write them down I am going to forget them really soon. Makayla spent 5 1/2 weeks in the NICU. I guess the best way to document this is to go through a typical day. I would go visit her in the morning around 10 or 11 depending on her current feeding schedule. I would have to check in at a window. I very rarely had to say who I was, because the nurses were amazing and knew me from day 1. They would give me a tag and let me in. Then I had to do a 5 min. scrub before I could go see Makayla. (Longest 5 min. of my life) It turned out that I was allergic to the soap they had. I broke out in a rash that itched like crazy. I finally talked to the nurse about it and she immediately got me a different soap.

Makayla was in bed space #25. The nurses taught me how to do her cares so that I could just start on that while they finished up with the other babies. I would change her diaper, take her temperature, and move her oxygen monitor to the opposite foot. We had to make sure to not throw away the diapers because they weighed every diaper to monitor that she was staying regular.

(ok I must admit I started this post 2 months ago but never finished and then I ended up having my gall bladder removed and I just realized I never finished it, so here are my attempts at remembering the details that are fading fast.)

Her nurses were so great. Even though I am sure they had a million things to do, they always took time to talk to me and get me a drink and to really just make me feel like they cared about me and Makayla on a very personal level. All her nurses were great, but there was one day shift nurse named Heather, that I just may never forget about. I got along with her really well. She would always make time to talk with me and just made the whole environment seem less stressful and more enjoyable. She took extra care to make sure that Makayla was the cutest dressed baby in the NICU. She even told me really quietly that she really did think that Makayla was one of the cutest babies she had ever worked with. :) She would make her out fit, bow, blanket and snake bean bag all match. (Makayla loved to cuddle her snake bean bags) I loved the days that Heather was her nurse.

I would stay for an hour or two and then go back home until about 7 or 8 at night when Lyil and I would go down again to see her. We had to do the 5 min. scrub in again when we got there. That scrub in time turned out to be our bonding time with other parents. I wish now, that I had thought to find a way to stay in contact with those families. I think about them all the time and I wonder how their little babies are doing. I would nurse Makayla every time I went to see her. They would weigh her first and then again after she ate to determine how much she had gotten. Then we would top her off with a bottle. My favorite night nurse was probably Tamara. She was a little older, but she was full of spunk. She would spend lots of time with us, making sure we had everything we needed.

Every 3 days, they would give Makayla a bath. It was usually done at night since it is less busy then. They had me help with her baths sometimes, which I was grateful for later. Not that bathing a baby is hard, I was just nervous about all that new stuff. Every time Makayla moved up a diaper size they made sure to give me one of her smaller diapers so that I could remember just how tiny she was.

One of the coolest things the NICU staff did for Makayla was on her 1 month birthday, they made a little balloon sign that said happy 1 month birthday, and did her foot prints again and put them on a really cute card for me to take home with the ones they did at birth. In my current state, I don't think she would have gotten that much attention that day at home.

We really hit the jackpot with our NICU experience. I shed minimal tears during those 5 1/2 weeks and it is all the whacked out hormones fault. I found this little song on pinterest and I think it describes the NICU pretty darn accurately. (my favorite lines are they count every milligram he grows and measures all the poop and the pee, and the nurses in cloggs make their rounds every hour, cause they are just so darn true!) I seriously just love this song so much and I plan on sharing it with Makayla when she is older.

If I think of any other details I will have to add them later, cause this is all I can remember at the moment. I love my little preemie Makayla Beth!

Makayla's Birth Story

This story starts on December 27, 2013. This was the day of my parents 50th wedding anniversary.

(What a good looking couple huh!) My siblings and I had planned a day full of celebrations. We had a really nice lunch with their siblings, children, and the older grandchildren. We then went to the church  to set up all the decorations for their open house. Their open house was lots of fun. My parents got to see a lot of their friends and really enjoyed their day. We then cleaned up and went home. When I got home and started getting ready for bed I noticed that my ankles were pretty swollen. I didn't think much about this since I had heard swollen ankles is pretty normal in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy.

Jump to January 1, 2014. Lyil and I were at his family's house playing games. We were there for the entire evening and as the hours went by, I noticed that my legs were getting more and more swollen to the point that they were hurting. I decided that if I had the same problem the next day at work, I would call my Doctor.

January 2, 2014. I went to work and by 11:00 my legs were really swollen again. During my lunch break I called the Dr. They told me they wanted me to come in right away to get my blood pressure checked. I told them I would check it at work and call them back since I didn't want to leave work. My blood pressure was pretty high so when I called them back after lunch they told me to come into the office right away. I talked to my boss and told them I needed to go get it checked at the office and that I would try and come back before the end of the day. When I got there, my BP (Blood Pressure) had gone up even higher. They immediately did an ultra sound to check on the baby and the umbilical cord. The baby seemed to be doing fine, but they wanted a non-stress test done which meant I had to go to the hospital and be hooked up to monitors.

 I stopped by Lyil's work on the way to the hospital to let him know what was going on and where I would be. Once I got there, they hooked me up the monitors, did another urine test and took some blood for tests. They were concerned enough that they admitted me to the hospital and told me that they might have to deliver the baby that night or the next day. They gave me a shot of steroids to help Makayla's lungs develop since she was only 32 weeks. They were worried about me having a seizure or a stroke since my blood pressure was so high. The highest it got was 160/102 which is super dangerous. They put me on a magnesium sulfate IV to help lower my BP. "The Mag", as it is so lovingly called, is the most awful stuff on the face of this Earth. It makes you feel like you are going to die! My whole face felt like it was on fire. It hurt to open my eyes and my mouth was on fire. It makes most people really nauseous, but I got lucky and was only nauseous for a few min. It made me delirious and super tired, but I had a hard time sleeping. According to Lyil, I just wasn't myself. (Luckily, I don't remember a whole lot about my time on the mag.)

My BP started to go down over the next couple of days so they took me off the mag and monitored me. It stayed down so they let me go home on January 5, 2014. I was put on strict bed rest and was told that I would not be going back to work until after she was born. They told me that for every day I could keep her inside, it would cut 2 days off of her time in the NICU once she was born. I went home and was obedient about staying down, but unfortunately my BP started creeping up again.

January 7, 2014. By late morning I was feeling really crappy again. I was feeling dizzy and my BP was pretty high again. I called my Dr. and he told me to go down to the hospital for another non-stress test. I knew I couldn't drive because I was so dizzy so I called my Dad and had him come get me. They started the tests again and it didn't take long until I was back on the mag. They admitted me again and told me that this time I wouldn't be going home until after she was born, but that they were going to try and keep her in there just a little bit longer.  It was just a waiting game now.

January 9, 2014. That morning the doctor told me that he wanted to try and do a vaginal birth if we could. They decided that it was time to start inducing my labor since my BP was not going down even though I was on the mag. They checked my cervix and to everyone's surprise I was actually dilated to a 1. The doctor gave me some medicine that would start to soften my cervix so that it would start to dilate even more. After 6 hours they decided to give me pitosin to really get my labor going. The problem was one of the things the mag does is try and prevent labor, and the pitosin was trying to start labor, but they couldn't take me off the mag since my BP was so high. So the medications battled against each other and  I started having contractions. They kept giving me more and more pitosin to try and really get my labor induced, and the contractions got stronger but never got closer together. After 12 hours of labor, my contractions were strong enough that they offered me an epidural. I decided that since I was already dealing with the side effects of the mag that I couldn't handle any more pain and I got the epidural. It was only about 15 min after that, that the doctor came in and told me that I hadn't progressed any more and that our only option at this point for the safety of Makayla and myself, was to do a c-section. I had a sense of relief come over me when he said that. I was so tired of feeling so awful from all the drugs and high BP, and I just wanted my baby to be ok. They took me in for the c-section and Lyil got to sit next to me as they started. As soon as they got Makayla out they had him go take pictures of her and be there with her. She was born at 9: 13 PM. She weighed 3 lbs. and was 15 1/2 in. long.

She was a miracle child. Even though she was only 32 weeks she was breathing on her own. Since she didn't need help breathing, they cleaned her up and brought her over so that I could see her. They let me look at her for a minute and I even got to give her a kiss on the cheek. Then Lyil went with her to the NICU while they finished the c-section. When I got back to my room my parents and Lyil's mom were there. Then they moved me to a recovery room.

January 10, 2014. At noon they finally took me off the mag. YAY!! It was time to rest and recover. I was told that as soon as I felt good enough to get out of bed that I could go hold Makayla. Since I had been on the mag for so long it took a lot longer to leave my system than I expected.

January 11, 2014. I finally felt well enough to get out of bed and to go hold my baby. It was one of the most amazing moments of my life. As soon as I got to hold her, I started feeling so much better. It felt so good to be able to hold her and tell her how much I love her. As miserable as the last week of my pregnancy was, it was all worth it when I got to hold her.

I love my baby Makayla Beth so much!