Blog

Second Week in the NICU

Once we realized she was going to have surgery, we knew we were definitely going to be racking up another week in the NICU. Thankfully we have pretty much settled into a routine that is keeping us all *mostly* sane. 

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My biggest struggle is pumping. Supply isn't the issue, there is way more milk than she could possible need right now. But I just don't love pumping. I enjoyed nursing the boys and it bothers me that it isn't in the cards for her right now. Thankfully it's not my first rodeo with pumping because I would probably be much more frustrated right now if I didn't already have some experience with it... 

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More x-rays! I honestly don't even remember what this set was for. She's gotten so many x-rays. They keep kicking me out of the room and letting my mom stay. Apparently being young and the potential for having more kids means you get kicked out. Rude. ;)

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Another visit from the boys! They got a little antsy last time they were here, so I bought them a Paw Patrol coloring book to share in case they got bored. Well Thomas didn't want to color any of the pages, he wanted to draw his own scene and use the stickers. The only blank page was the back of the sticker page, but he made it work. And told me I needed to get him blank paper next time. Sooooo particular!

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Henry colored for awhile, but you can see the boredom still set in a little bit. 

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They did the standard newborn hearing test on her good ear and she (unsurprisingly) did not pass the screen. Based on the chat with the ENT, I'm not panicking until they do the BAER  (brainstem auditory evoked response) hearing test to see if her inner ear is functioning. If so, then she'll just get some hearing aids and it will be no big deal. 

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When mom decided to fly up a few days early, my dad went out that night and bought me my favorite Texas donuts because she hadn't had a chance to get them yet. My emotions might be running a little high recently, but that definitely brought a tear to my eye when mom told me that. No matter how old we get, it's always nice to know our parents still want to baby us. :)

Also, food isn't allowed in the patient rooms in the NICU, so I had to store them in a locker in the parent room. Totally worth having to scrub back in to go eat a few donuts!

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I know I mentioned it last week, but this little girl really loves her dad. She loves staring at him! Matt is getting the raw deal of the situation since he still has to go to work, but he goes up and spends most evenings / nights with her after we put the boys down for bed. She seems to picking up some of his night owl traits as she seems to be more awake with him than me. 

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Speaking of hours, our usual routine is me getting up before everyone else and getting to the hospital pretty early. I'm there in time for rounds and mom comes in after helping get the boys ready for school. Mom and I take turns for lunch so Natalie gets super spoiled all day. Then most days, I go pick up the boys and Matt eats dinner with us when he gets home. Nonni usually can't tear herself away until after the boys are in bed and then Matt goes up there shortly after she comes home. 

The exception to this is the weekend. I stay home in the morning to have breakfast with the boys and Nonni goes in first thing. The boys seem to be coping pretty well with this arrangement so far. 

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The day after her surgery brought a whole new level of ridiculousness to the number of IV's she has. One of the other nurses was teasing her about hogging all the IV pumps. ;)

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This particular weekend, one of Thomas' friends was having a birthday party. Since his dad was also a coworker, I decided to take a break from the NICU for a few hours and go party with the boys. It was a nice break and the boys seemed to enjoy having both parents there. :) 

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And these beautiful flowers came from my dad to Natalie and I. He sent them to the NICU, which means they only got to go as far as the parent's lounge (food isn't the only thing banned in NICU rooms). So I brought them home where I could enjoy them in the morning and evening. Thanks for the pick-me-up, Dad! :)