Admitted to the NICU

Immediately after Milo was born they took him to the other side of the room and suctioned him out and performed the apgar test.  From all the way across the room I noticed a large red bump on his back and I knew it wasn't normal.  Then I heard the nurses and Dallin talking about some "extra tissue".  I had no idea what they were talking about.  I was trying to keep up with their conversation, but I was so exhausted and still in a little bit of pain as I was being stitched up.  They took Milo to the NICU to have them check out the bump.  It appeared that it wasn't connected to his spinal cord and he had full range of motion in his legs.  It also seemed like it wasn't causing him any pain, so they said they would look into it later and sent him back up to us.

Almost immediately after Milo was born I noticed that his cry was so sad sounding - not your typical newborn cry.  He was grunting with every cry and breathe and sounded like he was saying "uh-huh". We kept talking to the nurse about how weird it sounded.  He cried all through skin to skin - nothing I could do would console him.  Shushing, singing, holding him tight, patting his bum, rubbing his back. Nothing worked.  

We thought maybe he was hungry and so Dallin tried feeding him a bottle - he got a little bit of formula but not much.  He just wasn't able to eat. 

We made it up to our room in recovery and the nurse walked in and took a look at Milo.  Immediately she asked if he had been doing that grunting for awhile.  I told her that he'd been doing it since he was born and I was concerned about it.  She said she was concerned too and arranged to have him taken to the nurses station to be checked out.  Dallin went with him because I didn't want him alone.  They're gone for quite awhile - something like an hour I think - and the next thing I know I'm being told that Milo has been admitted into the NICU because he wasn't breathing well. 

My parents had arrived at that point, which was so nice to have them there to comfort me and keep me distracted from the fact that my baby wasn't breathing well at all and there was nothing I could do about it. I spoke with Dallin on the phone and he gave me some updates.  When Milo arrived in the NICU he oxygen saturation was in the low 70's and his respiratory rate was well over 100.  Neither of those numbers are good.  I wasn't allowed to go see Milo until I had more movement in my legs and could get in and out of the wheelchair. With labor and delivery happening so quick, my epidural was still in full force for quite awhile. So, it took awhile for me to have enough movement to make it down there.

As soon as I was able to, Dallin wheeled me down to the NICU and we stood next to our sweet miracle boy all hooked up to oxygen, a feeding tube, and lots of wires for monitoring.  I've never experienced something so heartbreaking than to see my own child struggle to breathe.

We were told that he was born with pneumonia in his lungs.  They weren't sure how it got there, but they were sure that it was there.  Also, he didn't get a good breathe when he was first born so one lung was collapsed.   They started him on antibiotics to treat the pneumonia and hoped that the nasal cannula oxygen would help encourage his lung to inflate.

It didn't take too long for them to realize that he needed more help than just a nasal cannula.  They put him on high flow oxygen and waited to see if he could hold his stats.  He didn't respond well, and shortly after they put him on a CPAP machine.  A CPAP machine puts pressure into the lungs to help keep them inflated and offers humid air for them to breathe.  Milo started responding well to the CPAP and began holding his stats more stable.

Over the next few days Milo's stats would go up and down.  Every time that they lowered the percentage of oxygen his stats would drop.  They were close to intubating him, but luckily that never had to happen.

By this time Milo had been in the NICU for about 10 days, and he had been stable long enough that they decided to switch him to high flow oxygen.  He responded well most of the time but would still struggle every time they lowered the oxygen level.  So they kept lowering his oxygen just a little bit and then ended up bringing it up again.  They did another x-ray to check out the pneumonia since his breathing wasn't improving the way they thought it should.  They x-ray showed that he still had pneumonia in his lungs and that one lung was fairly deflated.

A few more days go by and they are finally able to change milo to a regular nasal cannula.  He responded much better than anyone expected and continuously held his vitals. At this point we were able to start feeding him a bottle.  He did really well and picked up on eating right away - and most of the time he was able to keep his oxygen levels up while doing it! We were told that if he could eat all of his feedings by mouth for 48 hours then he could go home - assuming he was also off oxygen at that point.  We thought that it would take awhile for milo to gain the strength to be able to take a bottle every three hours, but within a few days he was doing it.  We were so proud.  And then all of the sudden he was off of oxygen.

They hadn't planned to remove his oxygen, but the nurse went in his room to check on him and saw that milo had pulled his nasal cannula out.  She had no idea it had been pulled out, but he had kept his vitals stable all day. So she just removed the oxygen all together and they never had to put it back on.

Milo kept eating well and breathing pretty well.  After completing an infant CPR class and watching a few infant safety DVDs they told us that we could finally take him home.

The next morning we packed him up and headed home with our new baby.  He came home after spending 18 days in the NICU.