Zoe's birth story really needs to begin almost a week before she arrived. That Sunday night Maija began throwing up, and this continued Monday and Tuesday. Maija was unable to keep any food down, even water. Eventually we started feeding her with an eye dropper.
We took Maija to the Doctor's on Monday, and the doctor wasn't quite sure what was going on, and thought she might just be coughing up phlegm causing her to puke. But by Tuesday afternoon we were back at the doctor, Maija unable to keep anything down for more than a couple minutes, and now it was clear that Maija had ear infections in both ears. :( We got her amoxicillan right away, and put her on a very controlled eating pattern, and after another day or two things were under control.
A bunch of things came out of this though. While she was sick Maija learned to enjoy two things. Her dvd and her stroller. This was basically all we did. Her love of the dvd didn't abate with her feeling better, but we are reluctant to let her watch tv unless the circumstances are dire. Her love of the stroller continued though, and now when she is particularly stressed out she is happy to get in the stroller, and she will kling to it and refuse to get out until she is feeling more comfortable. It is adorable, if a bit sad. I like it better when she clings to me. :)
Dad stayed home with her on Thursday, and she was doing quite a bit better. We went to daycare together in the afternoon and she enjoyed that quite a bit. On Friday we returned her to daycare full time, and she had a great day with all her friends.
But alas, that was not the only thing going on this week. On Thursday some fellows arrived to install Air Conditioning at home. A couple weeks before on a very rough return trip from Monterey (stuck on interstate for over an hour with Maija decidedly unhappy and 85+ weather), we decided to get AC as soon as we could. As with all of these types of things, they never go as well as planned. The men came and went at odd times, things weren't finished for over a week (see "The Week After", *sigh*).
Tim took Friday off and literally spent all morning playing computer games. That afternoon he did a few errands, picked up Maija from daycare, and had some fun with her.
Where was Kathy? First off she was trying to get as much work done as possible since her last day of work was only 2 weeks away and she had to make up for the Monday and Wednesday she stayed home with a sick Maija. Oh, and did I forget to mention the wedding? How silly of me. Yes, there was a wedding going on. Vic and Tish were getting married, and Kathy was a bridesmaid in the wedding. On Thursday evening there was an (East) Indian wedding ceremony at Vic's parents' place. On Friday night there was a wedding rehersal at the ceremony site in Livermoor. And Saturday, Kathy was to be back in Livermoor at the winery by 11am, to prepare for the 6pm wedding. So Kathy was around, but she was very busy, so Maija and Tim had a chance for some quiet bonding time, which was quite nice really.
The biggest ray of sunshine in all of this was Kathy's father Ed, who had come down to see Vic's wedding. Why did he come alone? Oh, did I forget to mention that Kathy's sister Mara had given birth to her son Zachary on the previous Friday? Marcia, Kathy's mom, was in State College PA looking after Mara, Gina and her husband John. Anyway, Ed was a total lifesaver being here, especially when he helped out with the cockroaches.
Cockroaches?! YUCK! Yes, I said cockroaches. Don't worry, we are still on the week before, we aren't anywhere near the birth yet. Anyway, Kathy and I had seem one or two beetley things in the garage over the past couple months, but on Thursday night Tim went into the garage about found 4-5 of the ugly disgusting little bloody buggers crawling around on the floor. Bravely, he trapped one under an old oatmeal box (it was helpful enough to crawl into it all on its own), and then ran away and locked the door to the garage. As a cold weather Canadian Tim had only seen a cockroach once before in his life, in a seedy hotel in Las Vegas (due to the length of this current story, we won't bother going into what Tim was doing in a seedy Las Vegas hotel at this time). So Tim wasn't prepared to deal with cockroaches besides to scream and shout, run in circles, and generally panic.
Anyway, we'll get back to those buzzards later in the story. So, Friday night Anne and Kyra came over for supper, seeing as Nick had strangely left town without notifying Kathy (we should have seen it coming, eh?). Anne, Kyra, Maija, Ed and Tim enjoyed some nice takeout Chinese food, and a little later Kathy came home. Kathy, however, wasn't feeling too well. It seemed that she was having a lot of pains in her back, and some contraction like things in her uterus. But it wasn't the same as when Maija came. We contemplated phoning the doctor, but as we reviewed the week we decided that stress was bringing on some strong braxton-hicks contractions, and that Kathy should just relax and rest and take it easy. (In hindsight I don't think this was a mistake. The doctor wouldn't have identified her symptoms as clearly being birthing contractions and at best would have told her to stay home and miss the wedding which would have stressed us all out in different ways, so I don't think we made any mistakes here.)
So, now we are getting close to the meat of the story. We all go to sleep (well, Kyra actually wakes up and then goes home with Anne) and I have to spend an hour massaging Kathy's back since it was so sore. Hurrah! It's Kathy's Birthday! Happy Birthday Kathy! We have a special breakfast for Kathy (not too special because she is gestationally diabetic), and we give her some birthday presents. Kathy's mom got her a wonderful cardigan and a blanket for the living room so she can stealing mine all the time. And Maija had picked out a digital frame for Mom, isn't that nice? Daddy voluteered to play with it and get it all setup and working for her.
So, off Mommy goes to the wedding, and Maija, Ed and Tim stay home and take it easy. Oh, and to deal with those bloody cockroaches. Tim has called this company which promises to take care of the problem quickly, safely, cleanly and without oder! How can you resist? However, when the lady shows up to give an estimate, she refuses to tell Tim what she is going to put around his garage and yard. Tim explains that he has a pregnat wife (not for long! don't worry, we are getting to it!) and a 15 month old toddler running around, and that he isn't willing to let some random strangers pour unknown substances around his yard, even if they don't smell. The lady finally agrees to Tim signing a non-disclosure agreement and she will tell him. She says she'll come back on Sunday to do the job and bring the agreement. Ok. It's odd, but Tim is desperate.
Anyway, enough with the disgusting bugs, we put Maija to sleep around noon just like normal, but she surprises us! She gets up after an hour! Not a good thing. She really needs 1.5-2.0 solid hours of sleep to be functional. And sure enough, by 3pm she is yawning and wants to take a nap. Well, we are supposed to leave for the wedding at 5pm, and we don't want Maija to wake up just before we put her in the car. So we stretch Maija out for a while, and then put her in the car at 4pm and leave an hour early, but letting her sleep in the car on the way there. This, as it turns out, was enormously convenient. Because now we get to the exciting part.
So here we are, driving over to the east side of the bay, following Yahoo directions, Maija sleeping in the back. Tim's phone rings, so he gets it out of his pocket and hands it to Ed. (Talking on a cell phone while driving us unsafe! Studies show it to be as bad as drinking!) Ed talks on the phone for a few moments, and then quite calmly says to me "Kathy's water has broken." And I think to myself, "Haha. Very funny Ed." Ed talks on the phone for a few more moments and then says "There is an OB at the wedding, she did an exam and Kathy is 3-4cm dialated." And I think to myself "Hey, cut it out, that's not funny anymore." After a few moments more conversation he tells whoever is on the phone that we are about 15 minutes away, and instead of driving out to the hospital that they should just wait for us. After that things sorta get fuzzy in my memory, sorta like the scenery does after you drop your car into 3rd and put the peddle down.
We pull up to the winery (which, as all wineries, is conveniently located on major streets right down town close to all amenities), I leave the car running with Maija and Ed in it, and run into the building. People are expecting me and point me in the right direction quite quickly, "Are you the father? Up the stairs and straight ahead!". There is a certain incongruety to shaking the grooms hand and congratulating him as you run by to your wife who is about to deliver a baby into his wedding, but I figured it was the polite thing to do. I even stopped to give Tish a quick hug, she looked great. At least I hope that was Tish ...
Kathy was lying back on a couch in her beatiful wine red dress. She was understandably upset, and so we spent a few minutes talking. No one knew how long this birth was going to take, and there is some insanely scarry statistic about what percentage of 2nd babies are born on the freeway. At the advice of the OB that was present, and our fabulous Dr. Francisco all the way back in Mountain View, we decided we should seek the closest medical center and get Kathy checked out. We get Kathy down to the car, and we send Ed and Maija off with my cell phone to go find Anne (did I mention how awesome Ed was in all of this?).
As you look back in your life there are certain moments in your life that stand out as odd or strange. Here is one. I'm driving Kathy's car down some unknown road on the east bay. I don't even know what town I'm in, nor do I have a map of the east bay. Kathy is in the passenger seat trying to breath and stay calm, to deal with the contractions as they come. I have in my hands a piece of paper with some handwritten instructions on them. Turn right here, go down a ways, turn left here, get on 580, get off 580, etc. And I'm thinking to myself, if that person got these directions wrong, we are so screwed.
About 2 minutes later (or 20 minutes later depending on how you choose to interpret time), we get to the hospital. It is a small set of buildings, with a lot of empty parking spots. It has a sign on it which says "Basic Emergency Medical Services", and Kathy says "Basic?! Basic?!". There is nothing we want more than to just drive back to El Camino and see our own wonderful doctor who delivered Maija beautifully to us and has always been great. But now that we are here, we figure we should get a doctor to come look at her and see how things are going.
Now, hospitals, despite being full of well intentioned, skillful, and helpful people, are really a bit duplicitous. The first thing I said when I went in is that we just wanted an exam, and if nothing was amiss we wanted to go back to our hospital. Everyone nodded and said yup, that was fine. But I don't think any of them meant it. It's sorta like an asylum. Once you check in, it's awful hard to get out.
So, expecting to have the baby any minute now, we head up to the maternity ward through a maze of corridors. (Litterally, a maze. Nice hospital, but after a week of coming and going this place is still a maze.) We get into a room, they get Kathy on a bed, and we talk over the whole story. They do a quick exam and they verify Kathy is at 3-4cm. Happy things aren't too far along yet, we all try to take a moments breath, the nurses come and go setting up sensors, and getting everything ready. Ed calls and informs us that he has delivered Maija to Anne, and that everything is ok on his end.
A tense hour or so goes by with the nurses coming and going setting things up. They do another exam and learn two things. The first is that Kathy is now 5-6cm, the second is that she is bleeding. Not a ton, and not enough to alarm the nurse, but at this time she shouldn't be bleeding. Blood came out when her water broke as well, and normally it is supposed to be pretty clear. No one is panicing (except me), but it is something to keep an eye on.
A couple more minutes go by, and it is getting on to 9pm. Amazing how that happens, eh? The nurse gives Kathy another exam and says she is 7-8cm. Wahoo! This is cruising right along! Kathy hasn't had any drugs, and actually complains more about the IV than her contractions. The bleeding seems to have abatted, Kathy is feeling good, and the nurse is thinking we could have the baby before midnight! Kathy and Zoe could share a birthday!
Now comes a bit busier time. Kathy decides that even though the pain so far has been quite bearable and she is somewhat interested in doing the whole thing naturally, however she decides that it would be better if she were well rested when Zoe comes out so she has the emotional reserves to handle whatever we discover when Zoe comes out at 34 1/2 weeks! So we ask for the epidural. Around the same time we talk to Ed and ask him to bring the hospital bag that Kathy had the foresight to pack months in advance!
Epidurals are always scary. When they tell you that your wife may because paralized for life when they do this, that can't help but make you think what your life would be like when that happened. Looking after two children and your paralized wife would be like single parenthood hell. But I made the decision there and then that I would happily look after her for the rest of our lives. Glad it never came to that. Hope it never does.
Once the got the epidural into Kathy they tried to fix her IV and get it into an arm, instead of the more painful hand. Our nurse tried on both hands and both arms, and failed. So she called in the expert! Kathy is notoriously hard to get blood out of, always needing to tell the blood thieves to use the butterfly needle. I don't have any idea what that is, but it seems to help. At any rate, this older super-nurse used all her tricks. She first wrapped Kathy's arms in warm blankets, and then left for a couple minutes. Then she came back and examined her closely. Looking on each arm and hand, tisk-tisking the failed holes, planning out her course of attack. Finally, she picked out a spot, and went in for the strike! Miss! It didn't work. So she switched tactics, went to the other arm, and got it in! Now Kathy was feeling much better. She had the epidural to cut down on the pain. She wasn't paralyzed. And the IV didn't hurt nearly as much as it had up until this point.
Round about this time, everything came to a screeching halt. Kathy had her epidural, she was trying to get a bit of rest. But she had stopped dilating. They put her on pitocin to try to keep things moving. Around 11pm or so we turned out the lights and decided to try and sleep for a bit. Ed decides to stay thinking this will be his only chance to see a birth. (This is his last grandchild and they didn't encourage dad's in the delivery room when his daughters were born.) Personally, I passed in and out of conciousness over the next couple hours, sleeping through several nurse visits. Kathy was still at 7-8cm with no progression. Finally, around 1am Ed was tired of trying to sleep in a chair and decided he would head home. Poor timing on his part.
Minutes after Ed left, the doctor came in. This was the first time we had even seen the doctor. He didn't even introduce himself, he just said he was going to do an exam. He did the exam, stood up, took off his gloves, and said "Prep her for the OR." At which point in time Tim, who had been sleeping calmly for a couple hours said "Whoa! What? Are we rushing things here? Is this really necessary? We would prefer to deliver naturally." Or something to that effect. At any rate, the doctor took offense. Which didn't bother me too much, as I had taken offense to him sticking his hand in my wife without even introducing himself. But he took a few impatient moments to explain that when he did the exam that blood had gushed out. He suspected that the placenta had ruptured, and this was a dangerous situation for both Mother and Child. Zoe's heart rate had also started getting a bit more erratic than it had in the first couple hours we were at the hospital. He wanted us to move into the OR so that he could get the baby out at a moments notice.
So they shaved Kathy and got her ready, and then pushed her out and down to the OR. I had to stop and cover myself in a sanitary covering, and I put it on in sort of a daze. When I came into the room, the doctor had tried to push Kathy's cervix out of the way, and wanted her to push and try to deliver the baby right now. Kathy was most of the way dialated, and the baby was early and small, so he thought it might work.
Kathy is a total trooper, and she went straight to work. It took about 2-3 minutes to get Zoe out! The crown of the head came visible seconds after she started pushing. About a minute or so later the full head came out. The cord was wrapped around Zoe's neck, probably what caused her to stop progressing and Zoe's heartbeat to become erratic. The doctor unwrapped the cord, and with another push Zoe came all the way out. Happily she gave a nice loud lusty cry. :)
They rushed Zoe to the exam table and began checking her over. They wanted to make sure she could breath, and that her heart was working, and lungs, and all that stuff. Kathy delivered the placenta about a minute after Maija and it was indeed ruptured and coming appart. There was a lot of blood. I was right next to tears. The doctor whom I thought had the bedside manners of a mule, I wanted to go over and give a big hug to. I refrained from both tears and the hug (though I did give him a heartfelt thank you a little later, and that was the last time we ever saw him), and instead had some heartfelt eye-to-eye contact with Kathy. After they were sure Zoe wasn't going to die any moment, they brought her over to Kathy and let her see her. And then Zoe and I went to the NICU (natal intensive care unit).
Wahooo! We have Zoe! She's been born! But now there was a lot of tension. She's 5.5 weeks early, she's very small, clearly a preemie, and everyone is anxious about what that might mean. She is breathing on her own, and that is a big hurdle. There are babies this young who can't do that yet.
What follows now are several hours of exams on Zoe. They know that Kathy had gestational diabetes, so people are concerned about her blood sugar. They take a sample and send it to the lab stat! They listen to her heart and lungs, they clean her up a bit. Tim spends a bunch of time in the NICU talking to the pediatrician and the nurses about the issues Zoe faces while Kathy waits anxously in her room. Eventually we get the numbers back, and Zoe's blood sugar is 27. Ok. Let's just say that for adults, anything under 40 would put you in a coma. Even for an infant, this is pretty low. They try to give her some sugar water orally, but newborn infants aren't that interested in eating, nor are they really awake enough to master the process (especiall starting with a blood sugar of 27!). So they decide that Zoe needs an IV. Remember the frustration we had with Kathy's IV? Well, Zoe didn't get off much better. The nurses kicked me out of the room so I wouldn't have to watch (and make them nervous). The next time I saw Zoe (over an hour later I think) she had an IV in. But she also had buises on both arms and hands and feet. I think they tried like 5-6 places before they got it to work. It was quite sad. :( But the good news was that the IV zoomed her blood sugar up over 100, and she continued to respond well over the next couple hours.
There were other concerns too. They were going to end up doing the IV with or without the blood sugar problem, as they wanted her to be on antibiotics for 48 hours while they ran blood cultures to make sure she wasn't ill in some complicated way that I don't understand. They were also concerned that she might be enemic because of the blood loss through the placenta, but the lab came back a couple hours later and said she was fine.
We stayed awake for several hours throughout this whole ordeal as Tim spent time in the NICU with Zoe and her caretakers and Kathy waited anxiously for news. It was sometime around 6am that we finally gave up and tried to get some sleep.
| Sunday: |
We wake up a few hours later on Sunday morning. Kathy gets to work on pumping out some colostrum for Zoe, and Tim heads out in search of a Starbucks. The nurses kindly advise him that there is a Starbucks built into a Safeway nearby, and he heads over there (note: Tim still has no clue where he is). As Tim is standing in line at a Safeway run Starbucks (yes, you can use your Safeway club card there), he notices that several of the customers having flowers. That's a bit odd, eh? Tim gets his coffee, or in starbuckese a "venti soy no foam latte". He heads out of the store walking back to the car, and as the caffeine hits his system he slowly wakes up and observes his surroundings a bit more. Most notable is the line of customers leaving Safeway. Oddly enough, nearly every single one of them has flowers. Now that's just downright out of place, dontcha think? Tim actually got into the car before he connected the dots ... it's Mothers Day! Despite being exhausted he clambered back out of the car, went back into Safeway, and bought Kathy some beautiful roses. You can see them in Zoe's birth pictures. By the time Tim returns with flowers and coffee Kathy has finally managed to get all the makeup from the wedding off her face. It was a bit odd having Kathy, who never wears any makeup, to give birth to her daughter all dandied up. Too bad we didn't get a good pic of that. :) Ahhh yes. Back to the bloody cockroaches. The mystic lady arrives at 11am in the morning and Ed meets her. Unfortunately, she has changed her mind. She is not willing to disclose the substance even under signature. Ed sends her away. Kathy breaks down crying in the nursery in the afternoon when her sore nipples barely produce any colostrum while the mother next to her comes in with lots. Danielle one of the awesome Nursery nurses suggests she get a good night sleep and wait to try pumping again in the morning. At this point Kathy has not seen Maija since Wednesday, appart from an hour or so each morning as we rush to get ready and get out of the house. So Tim tosses Maija into the car and lets her nap on the way to the hospital. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a poor choice. Maija was pretty off balance from spending all weekend with Anne and Kyra (even though she did have a lot of fun, and we have great pictures to prove it!). And then she wakes up from her nap in the car to go into this strange cold building full of scarry people and a mommy who is dressed in weird clothes, etc. We spead out a bedspread on the floor of Kathy's room and had a supper-picnic there. After that Kathy was pretty wiped and just wanted to go to sleep. Wisely, she decided that sleep was more important than pumping. She slept from 6pm to 6am, 12 straight hours! Meanwhile, Maija and Tim found a deserted lobby in the hospital and played with the automatic doors for a couple hours. :) Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, Marcia has raced to get onto a plane and lands in San Francisco at 9pm. She is too late to see Kathy and Zoe today, but she has time to talk to Tim and get ready to visit the hospital tomorrow. End of the first day. Wow. That was one long day. |
| Monday: |
Kathy wakes up after her sleep-a-thon and spends 30 minutes in the shower getting all the hairspray out of her hair. She has finally cleansed herself of the wedding preparations! :) Kathy then gets moved from her laboring room to a recovery room. Meanwhile, back at the farm, we try to give Maija a normal day. Tim gets her ready and takes her into daycare just like normal. Then Tim, Marcia and Ed all head up to the hospital to visit Kathy and zoe. Kathy is in good spirits. The plan is to go to the cafeteria for lunch, but they call us back and say that Kathy can't leave the ward without a note from her doctor :). So the others bring food a back and kathy orders lunch from the hospital menu. This turns out to be a good deal since the patient food is a TON better than the cafeteria. Zoe gets her first attempt at breast feeding. She doesn't suck much, but she is happy to latch on and hang out at the boob. Much different from Maija who never really liked the breast. Cathy Sage comes by for a visit and gets to hold Zoe. And the AC guys come back. Let's not go into a lot of detail here. But let us suffice to say that they return to the house numerous times over the course of this week, and Ed kindly takes care of them for us.
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| Tuesday: |
Kathy is getting discharged today. Tim and Marcia come up. Zoe is put in an isolet to maintain her body tempurature. No more holding her, just holding her hand. On the plus side, no more IV or antibiotics, she passes the 48 hr infection test. Tim and Kathy try to sit through the discharge class, but Kathy can't handle hearing all about what to do with your baby at home when she doesn't get to take hers home. Before she is discharged Kathy, Marcia and Tim head down to the cafeteria to plan. The hospital will let Kathy stay in any open room they have as long as space permits and zoe is in the nursery. However, they will need her to vacate a room if they start running low with delivering moms. After lots of crying and an extra drive by up by Ed, they decide that from now on, Kathy will come home around 3pm and then come back every morning around 9am. Kathy comes home. Maija gets to spend quality time with Kathy. Anne comes by to visit. Marcia does all the house work, shopping, cooking! |
| Wednesday: |
Zoe gets to spend the day suntaning in under the biliruban lights. This is largely preventative to ensure that her jaundice never becomes a problem. After today her only issue is growing and feeding. Tim is a little overstressed and zonked out and he elects to just stay home today. He takes some downtime and finally gets someone to come solve his cockroach problem (thank goodness!). Meanwhile Zoe breastfeeds well and Kathy is happy. |
| Thursday: | Tim heads back to the hospital today and actually does his first feeding! Zoe is back in her crib, no more jaundice. She is a pokey feeder, but still gets a bottle and breast feeding. There is talk of her coming home over the weekend. Thursday afternoon after Tim and Kathy get home from the hospital, the doctor calls to say that because she is so slow at feeding, they want to put a tube down her throat to poor the breast milk down to ensure that she can use all her energy to grow instead on spending it all up trying to feed herself. A very low point. It starts to become quite clear that Zoe will not be coming home by the weekend. :( |
| Friday: |
Turns out the tube was a good idea because this morning they weight her and discover she has lost 6 oz! Still, once we get there, the tube isn't so bad and we still get to hold her tons. Tim stays home again. |
| Saturday: |
She gains a 1/3 of an oz. The tube is working well. Tim and Kathy come up together. A good day. Grandpa and grandma spend the day looking after Maija, and they have a blast. The good part about Kathy and Tim going to the hospital together is that they can keep each other company on the drive, usually meaning that Tim reads Harry Potter to Kathy! :) |
| Sunday: | She gains an oz! Tim stays home to look after Maija today. A better breastfeeding day. |
| Monday: |
Zoe gains 2 oz! At this point, we decide to give grandpa and grandma a break and send them home (they leave lots of yummy food in the freezer). The week looks like it is going to be a vaguely normal week for us, except that instead of driving to work, we are going to drive to the hospital. Longer commute. Bit more boring. Fair bit more stressful. At this point we get into our daily routine. We drop off Maija at daycare by 7:30am (as soon as they open) and head to the hospital. Around about 2pm we head home, take a short break, and then pick up Maija. |
| Tuesday: |
She loses an oz :(. Decide to go to full tube feedings because the bottle feeding may be tiring her out. Nothing scary, but sad since we this delays her homecoming. A ton of new babies show up. Tim stays home to do shopping and laundry. Or wait ... was that for ultimate? :) |
| Wednesday: | Overnight Zoe loses 1/3 oz and pulls out her tube out of her nose. The nursery is full and Zoe's nurse can't get the tube back down her nose. When Tim and Kathy arrive, nurse Valerie who has been an awesome support skillfully re-inserts the nose tube. |
| Thursday: | Zoe goes back to every other feeding with a bottle. She is started to make some progress now. Tim stays home for chores, and to drop Kathy's car off at the shop, all this driving has put it over the 30,000mile limit and we want to get it checked out (plus a couple low tires we want to replace). |
| Friday: | Kathy and Tim go together today (more Potter time!). The nurses start to report that her feedimgs are getting much better. They bump up the amount of food she gets each meal. |
| Saturday: | Kathy goes to the hospital herself, while Tim takes Maija to Happy Hollow to meet up with Nick & Anne who kindly look after him for a couple hours. Since she has been eating so well, we decide to try all her feedings with the bottle. Later in the afternoon, Nick & Anne pick up tai food and bring it over to the house and have supper with us. This is what good friends are made of. :) |
| Sunday: | Did I mention that Kathy has been calling the NICU every night after midnight while she pumps to check up on Zoe and find out her new weight. This morning Valerie says we should ask the doctor to start planning for Zoe to come home. Tje nurses are always the most conservative with their estimates so this is a really big deal. Kathy breaks with the normal routine and takes Maija to church in morning. Babysitter in afternoon. |
| Monday: | Car seat test. Respiratory video. Hearing screen ( she passes !). Everyone is quite excited. If everything goes fine, we are all set to take her home first thing tomorrow morning! |
| Tuesday: |
We phone first thing in the morning and they say we can take Zoe home! We drop Maija off and get to the hospital as soon as we can, hoping on being home before noon. But these things have a way of becoming time consuming. :) She gets inspected by two pediatricians, and nurse Gail (another of our favorite nurses). Then she has to have a bath to get all cleaned up before they'll let us go. The good news is that her cord has fallen off and she has a little outie bellie button! Finally, we get to leave with Zoe. And despite the fact that Kathy has been coming and going for two weeks, Gail insists on wheeling her out in a wheelchair to our car. And again, Grandpa and Grandma Kuplis come to the rescue and arrive later that afternoon to help look after the family. Our notes over the past week or so got a little sketchy, as things settled into a pretty comfortable routine. But today was quite exciting. Both Kathy and Tim were looking forward to it a lot. They could finally take their daughter home and get out of the hospital. They could finally do that nesting/bonding time at home with their wee little cute one, and show off her new room and bed and toys and various pieces of indispensible baby gear you never knew you needed until you had a baby and now you can't live without. Oddly though, this was a very stressful day too. When your baby has spent two weeks hooked up to machines which register her heart beat constantly, and you unplug her and walk away, you find yourself oddly nervous. Is she still breathing? Nothings beeping. No graphs to watch, no flashing numbers. The whole hour long ride home from the hospital we kept checking her every 5 minutes to make sure her chest was still going up and down. Getting her home has been great though. For starters, babies this age sleep a lot. Thank goodness. She is much easier to look after than, say, Maija, who wants constant attention. With Zoe we feed her every 3 hours like clockwork, and for the rest of the time she basically sleeps and digests. And being at home we can now do odd pieces of work while she naps, or go look up something on the internet, or grab a new book off the bookshelf or watch tv, etc. Things you can't do while sitting in the ICU looking at flashing lights and hearing bells and warnings go off constantly. On the memorable footnotes for today go grandpa and grandma Kuplis who drove back up to look after us some more, now that we have Zoe home and will be getting up 3-4 times a night to feed her. This is one advantage of the ICU we won't forget quickly. :) Additionally, this last weekend was pretty hectic and we didn't have time to shop or cook, and the Sages thankfully brought us over something to eat so we wouldn't all starve. :) |
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