6 Weeks Old

I'm late posting for Cooper's 6 week birthday because it was an incredibly emotional day.  Cooper had a great day on Saturday, but when downhill fast.

As I was getting ready to leave the hospital at 9 pm on Saturday night, Cooper had a bad episode of not breathing and dropping his heart rate. I assumed it was because I fed him a bottle at 5 and he got a bath at 8, so he was probably just tired. Plus he had a history of doing that while being fed through the feeding tube because of the reflux. Once he stabilized I went home, thinking everything was fine. Nurse A even lifted the top off his isolette since he had been relating his temp so well. 

My phone was ringing at 1:30 in the middle of the night. A phone call at that time of night is not good news. Sure enough, Cooper had been having trouble breathing so Dr K decided to put him back on the CPAP. They ran some tests and were pretty sure he had an infection so they also started him on antibiotics. Which meant he got an IV in his foot.

Later that morning I got another call telling me that they had ceased his feedings and were only going to do cares every 4 hours because anyone someone touched him for a temp check or diaper change he would stop breathing and drop his heart rate. The nurse had already had to force his breathing with a oxygen mask twice that morning. That meant I wouldn't be able to hold him.

During the day the nurse and doctor tried to be optimistic, but he just didn't seem any better. The CPAP alone wasn't enough so they added a rate to the pressure. His blood work came back a little worse each time and Dr K finally made the decision that Cooper needs another blood transfusion.

The evening was so hard on all of us. They had to draw more blood to send to get the blood transfusion prepared. Then they needed to give him another IV so he could get the blood and medicine simultaneously. I'm not sure how many times they stuck him because I couldn't watch, but it took a long time and he had marks on each arm and his free foot and two on his head. They finally got an IV to work on his head, my last favorite spot.

He had a lot of air in his belly so they inserted a vacuum tube to help relieve some of the pressure. At that point I was wondering just how much more could go wrong.

The worst part was that Cooper was miserable and let us know it. There is nothing worse that hearing him cry but knowing that he had to go through that pain to get the care that he needs. It was so scary we just couldn't leave him.

Once they finally were done doing everything he needed, he still wouldn't calm down. He just lay in bed crying like he was in pain. Around 1 am the nurses could tell I was having a hard time, so they let me hold him. It still took him a while to settle, but once he did he slept for 2 hours. I started to doze off a few times but then he would move or make a noise and I would be wide awake again. I finally had to ask the nurses to put him away so Jake and I could come home to get some sleep.

I'm home, pumping now, then going to bed. This has been an incredibly draining day. Emotionally and physically. I'm not usually an emotional person and the few times I do get upset enough to cry, I don't do it in front of other people. I couldn't hold it in today. I broke down in front of Jake this morning and in front of the nurses this evening. Nurse L wasn't even our nurse tonight but made a point to come in to give me a hug. I sure do love our NICU nurses. I'm going to try to get some sleep and pray that tomorrow is a better day.