NICU day 4 {December 24th-Christmas Eve}

The morning of the 24th (Christmas Eve) was difficult to say the least. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I have never had anything but happy memories, and then our kids came along and made it 1000 times more exciting. I love the magic of it all and seeing their faces light up.

That day though... that day felt dark and sad, and to be honest, I didn't want to celebrate. I was still in utter disbelief that my life had been literally flipped upside down in what seemed like an instant. Just a week ago we had been so excited for the holiday's. Mike had just finished up his second to last semester of nursing school and we were both only working 2 days a week, so we had a lot of time off together while the boys were at school. We had gotten all of our Christmas shopping done and had wrapped everything 2 weeks early because I was supposed to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The plan was that I would work Christmas Eve, Mike would put all of the gifts out that night and that I would come home and we would open presents together with the boys before I had to go back to sleep so that I could work that night. It was the first time I would have to work Christmas in 12 years of working in the medical field and I had been so sad. Looking back though, I just want to kick myself, because I would have given anything to be at work with her still growing inside of me, instead of where we were.

The nurses made Paige a little footprint card.

I spent most of Christmas Eve morning in the NICU with Paige. I cried a lot that day, knowing that I would have to leave such a huge piece of my heart at the hospital. I was trying to figure out a way that I could make everyone happy. Should I just stay at the hospital and bring the boys up for Christmas? No... they needed some sense of normalcy and they needed their mom too. It's so hard needing to be in two different places at once. I also just wanted and needed to rest. I couldn't rest in that hospital. Deep down, I wished they would have just let me go home before I had her because being in that hospital made me anxious. Maybe I could have gotten further a long if they would have let me go home in the first place... but would she have survived? Would I have died? There were so many thoughts going around. See what I do there? Like I said, those thoughts still creep into my head here and there and it sucks. One thing I was happy about though, was that Paige was pretty stable... stable enough that I felt comfortable leaving for a few hours. The plan was that I would be discharged, we would go get the boys, eat dinner at Mike's parents and go right back up to see her before leaving for the night.

Mike left that morning to take care of things with the boys. I was cleared for discharge at around 3 so he came back to pick me up and to say goodbye to Paige for a few hours. We were both so sad when we walked out of that room. Her wonderful nurse, Emily, told us to contact her whenever we needed and that she would give us updates every 5 minutes if we wanted her to (which is pretty much how it was!). I felt at ease knowing an update was just a phone call away and it made leaving just a little easier.

Side note- Emily was the nurse who trained me when I started as a new grad nurse in 2016. When I walked in the day after Paige was born and saw her in there I can't tell you how relieved I felt. I couldn't  have been more thankful to have her be Paige's primary RN. I knew how she worked... she is one of the most thorough and caring people that I know, and I knew that Paige was in the very best hands. The care we received from EVERYONE was incredible.

We went back to my room and packed up all of our things and transport wheeled me down to our car. We got in the car and started to drive away and I just burst into tears. I remember feeling something similar when I had to leave my boys in the NICU, but like I said, they never had any serious conditions. Leaving Paige that day, in the condition she was in, was almost too much to bear.

We drove to my parents and picked up the boys. Everyone was there to greet us. I again burst into tears when I saw them all. It felt like an out of body experience. I had been so excited for all of my siblings to come into town for the holidays, we had so many fun activities planned and I had barely gotten to see them. All of them had come up to visit Paige and I, but that's the most I had seen of them. They were worried about me and wanted me to get some rest so we gathered up all of the boy's things and left for home.

By that time, it was close to 5 o'clock. We were supposed to be to Mike's parents by 4. We told them to go ahead and eat without us. I was sad, exhausted, in a lot of pain and just wanted to go home and shower. I contemplated not going over there at all, but again I wanted my boys to have a fun time so we told them we would be there as soon as we could.

Walking into our house was a painful experience on its own. Seeing Paige's clothes laid out at the foot of our bed that we had just picked out together as a family just 3 weeks before, and all of the excitement of Christmas we had left behind was so hard. I just wanted everything to go back to how it was. I felt so bad and missed her so much... I wanted to get back to her. I hadn't even been gone from the hospital for an hour before I called her nurse to check on her.

She told me that Paige was stable so I felt slightly more at ease. After I got a positive update, I felt a little better and we continued to get ready. Before we left, we took pictures of the boys in front of our tree on Christmas eve like we do every year. I always get my boys nice new clothes to wear on Christmas Eve, but with everything that happened, I never got a chance to go out and buy them anything so I tried to put something together for them. This picture was so hard to take... we so badly wanted Paige there with us. I just wanted her back in my belly. It was heartbreaking.

Before we went to Mike's parents house, we stopped by the Meridian St. Luke's to pick up my pain medication prescription. I hadn't had anything for pain for over 8 hours, and I was hurting pretty bad by that point. As I sat in the parking lot, waiting for Mike to pick up the medication, I decided to start an Instagram account for Paige. I had received advice to start one from a friend who had a previous 23 weeker. She told me how nice it was to have a central place, other than a personal account, to update everyone and that it could second as a journal to look back on. I thought it was a wonderful idea. I was so excited to be able to share our beautiful baby girl's story with everyone! Here was my first update...

By the time we got to Mike's parents house, I felt awful. For one, I had finally been able to take a pain med and felt pretty loopy, and two, I just didn't want to be anywhere but with Paige. I sat in one of the spare rooms, crying as I pumped and waited for an update. I didn't want to keep bothering her nurses, but I wanted to make sure she was okay. At that point I would have given anything to have a real-time camera in the room with a way to communicate constantly with the nurses. I texted Mike to come in because I was having another panic attack. I asked him all the same questions... mostly I just wondered how we were going to get her through this. He quickly eased my mind by reminding me how stable she had been that afternoon and that we could go visit her before we went home for the night. He also reminded me that her nurses were always available for updates and would let us know if anything had changed. I knew that he was right and that I needed to somehow pull it together no matter how bad I was hurting inside. I needed to be strong, focus on the positive, and try to make this day special for my boys. Being able to receive updates from her nurse throughout the evening whenever I needed was pretty much the only way I was able to stay. I would have been a wreck without the constant contact. I was glued to my phone waiting for the next update on how she was doing.

She had found her little toes! Cutest thing ever!

We spent the evening eating and exchanging gifts. The boys had so much fun when the elves dropped off presents for them on my in-laws doorstep. I mostly sat in the corner, trying to enjoy the evening, but not succeeding. I remember everything being so loud because of the side affects of the medications I was on. I just wanted to go into a room and hide. I cried when I opened presents with Paige's name on them. It still brings me to tears-those feelings of wishing so bad that things were different. Wishing she was still in my belly and that I was opening her gifts with cute clothes in them in anticipation for her arrival... not wondering if she would even make it to wear them.

At shift change, Emily went off shift and Amy, the night shift nurse came on. She was also one of our favorites. Let's be honest, everyone was our favorite. Paige had so many amazing fill in parents when we couldn't be there! We knew that she was in wonderful hands with Amy and she continued updating us throughout the evening and Paige continued to have a quiet Christmas Eve.

We left Mike's parents as soon as we could, (around 9:30p.m.) to go visit Paige before we headed home. When we finally arrived back at the hospital, I couldn't get up to that NICU fast enough! Mike dropped me off at the front and I ran in, as fast as I could having just had a c-section. 

When the boys and Mike arrived after parking the car, I came out and took a picture of the boys in the waiting room in front of the Christmas tree. It was the closest we could get to having the three of them together, and I hoped with all of my heart that next year this would just be a memory and that all my babies would be gathered around our tree at home. 

Mike and I each spent time with Paige that night. At one point, one of the staff members offered to go out to the waiting room to hang out with the boys, so that we could get a picture together with Paige on her first Christmas Eve. In total, we stayed for about an hour 1/2 before we decided that we should probably get home. I just keep thinking of my poor sweet boys in that waiting room, on Christmas Eve. I felt awful. It was so hard to leave her again but I knew that she was in good hands, that I could get updates whenever I wanted to, and that I needed to be home for my boys too.

When we got home, we tried to keep everything as normal as possible. We read the boys "The night before Christmas." and laid out Christmas cookies for Santa. I usually bake cookies with the boys on the 23rd, but again, wasn't able to do that this year. I was thankful to my mom for doing that with them for me so we had something to leave for Santa. After we got them to bed, Mike and I were up until about 2 a.m. getting Christmas ready. There were lots of tears, and lots of anxiety. I wasn't sure how I was going to sleep that night being 30 minutes away, missing and worrying about our sweet angel, but somehow, I got through it.

Throughout the night I continued to call Amy for updates. Looking back at the time stamps of the calls, I realized that I didn't sleep much. I knew that the boys would be up early and I honestly was so exhausted I didn't know what to do. After pumping and getting ready for bed, I finally drifted off to sleep before the boys woke us up about 2 hours later to open presents on Christmas morning.

NICU DAY 4 According to Daddy (December 24th, 2018 Christmas Eve) 

Hey there little one. Well it’s a great start to this Christmas eve day. Mom had me call down to your room this am at about 0600 to see how things went and we couldn’t have gotten a better report. You went down on your O2 needs (PIP, PEEP, etc.), and the only I guess major thing was the need for your ET tube to be pulled back just a “smidge” because on the chest X-ray it looked to be a little too deep. So, it got pulled back just a little bit to maximize the efficiency of the jet and work of breathing. So, with that news we went back to sleep with happy hearts.

Well with every up there seems to be a down when it comes to NICU babies. But listen this down was the only negative aspect of the day. Because they went down on your PEEP, this caused you to be increased on your FIO2 which would flirt with the 60% margin but stayed 40-55% most of the day. The reason your PEEP was turned down even more from the 0600 cares to 8.5 around 0900 after the morning Dr. rounded which was related to the X-ray obtained earlier showing expansion in the abdominal picture. I guess you can say they are trying to fine tune you to perfection, although your practically there.

Mom on the other hand had a good day of pumping and milk production. At the rate you are eating I would say you could probably survive in the wild for at least two months. Speaking of mom, Paige, she loves you so stinking much it hurts her to see you in that giraffe. I hope you know that we love you so much and that you are loved by many many people.

Today was a great day little one and again a pretty short report for you but nothing really happened which we love to hear as parents. A great day and a relaxing day at its best.

Today was a great day and tomorrow is another day, stay strong little one.

We love you sweetie