Giggles and Tidbits: NICU Baby.

After Baby Girl's dramatic entrance into this world, we were feeling very blessed and excited to finally have her in our arms. Her Apgar score was great and feedings were going well. But we only got to keep her by our sides for a few hours.

A nurse came in around 7 am to explain to us the our new little one had a heart murmur, which can be pretty common in newborns. But since it was a Friday, they were going to go ahead and run an ultrasound on her heart to make sure everything was OK. In order to run the test they needed to take her to the NICU and get her blood pressure but they would bring her right back.

Time kept creeping by and as I was asking Randy what he thought was taking so long a nurse breezed in and mumbled something about "baby's blood sugar really low, had to feed her formula, and she will remain in the NICU." and out she went. Time stood still...I scrambled to wrap my brain around what she had just said. How could this be!?! After everything we just went through. And what do you mean you fed her formula!?! I'm going to BF!! How long does she have to stay there!?! What is wrong with my beautiful baby girl!?! At this point I still had very little feeling in my legs, was still all hooked up to a number of contraptions and therefore was confined to the bed. But my hero of a husband quickly rushed out and down to the NICU to get some actual answers.

What we learned was that when brought into the NICU for her blood pressure readings the nurses realized that she was very lethargic. After running a few test they discovered that she had a dangerously low blood sugar level. Anything lower than a 40 is too low and she came in at a 9. She also had a very low blood count and they didn't seem to have any answers for why any of this was happening. But again some higher power had intervened...Everyone from the doctors to nurses kept telling us how lucky we were that our sweet baby girl had been brought into the NICU when she had. And it's true...I had no idea that there was anything wrong with her. I just thought she was sleeping.

They kept her in the NICU for 4 days. We watched her blood sugar rise, fall, and rise again. Learned that I had somehow been absorbing her blood into mine, which they think had been going on for a long time. Her heart rate and breathing were normal which seemed to indicate that she had simply learned to adjust to the stress. This was also very strange since I had such a normal pregnancy. And she later developed a mild case of jaundice.

We are again very grateful that all of her problems were pretty easily fixed and to the amazing staff at Memorial Hermann who took such great care of her. And my heart goes out to all the families who babies are in there for much higher hurtles...it's gut wrenching to see your tiny little love all hooked up to tubes and wires. The feeling of helplessness is overwhelming. I know our short 4 day stretch seemed like an eternity!