Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Journey Continues

It took one very large sleeping pill for me to get to sleep. Without my baby in my arms I felt so empty. So lonely. There was nothing I could do. I asked to be discharged the next morning so I could head up to be with my baby. I did just that. I made arrangements at the David's House so Jeremy and I could have a place to stay. David's house is a house that offers rooms to parents who children are in the hospital's ICU. After I was discharged we quickly ran home to pack our stuff, we were not sure how long we would have to be at the hospital.

 It was about an hour and a half long drive to get to the hospital where my son was. It was a long and nervous drive to the hospital and I still wasn't fully recovered from the birth. When we got to our new home we got settled in our room and unpacked our clothes. We were in the bear room and there were stuffed animal bears that decorated our room. Considering what we were going through we had a very nice room that was comfortable and made us feel at home. Then we went to see our baby.

In the first few moments we seen our son he was hooked up to all these wires. We were told we had a very sick son. He had pulmonary hypertension and was not able to breathe on his own and his heart was not working properly. They had to sedate him so he was in a medical coma. Seeing him this sick was the worst thing ever. I was heartbroken. It was then they sat down to explain everything to Jeremy and I but I didn't hear anything. Everything was a blur to me and their voices were all muffled. Through my head ran all the things that I could have done to make a baby so sick. I thought I had done everything right and I tried to have a healthy pregnancy.

During the many doctors explaining to me how sick my child was they informed us that he then needed to be transported to Boston Children's Hospital to receive even better care. We were not even there for 30 minutes and they were already again taking him from us. With all this news I was overwhelmed. I started to drift away and wanted this all to be a dream. During an extreme anxiety attack I fainted. I could not take any more bad news. When the ER doctors came to the NICU to take care of me I declined their care so I could quickly get on my way to Boston. I wanted to be there when my son got there so he would spend as much time with me as he could. We packed up our room and we were on our way.

Boston was bitter sweet. It was nice to be in such a busy city and at the best hospital in the world, but it was awful I had to be there because my son was so sick. The hospital was huge and looked like a very fun place. We checked in and got hospital badges so we could enter certain areas of the hospital. Then we got to see our baby. He was beautiful and his nurse was very nice and comforting. They gave us a room where we could keep our stuff and sleep. I settled in and unpacked my stuff realizing this was now my new home for a while.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

A Journey Begins Part 1

After a long nine months, it was now time, time for our baby to enter this world and our beautiful family. We couldn't be more excited. We had decided to name him Journey because while I was pregnant there were so many problems. We were told that he would have a genetic disorder and that it could possible be fatal. That didn't matter to Jeremy and I. It was my job to do my best to take care of this child and that was my only goal at this point.

When he was born they immediately took him. He wasn't breathing and had Pulmonary Hypertension. He has to be rushed down to the NICU where they could put him on oxygen. Of course I wasn't able to go with him since I has just given birth so Jeremy rushed with him. I have not been alone in nine months, I have always had my baby with me...now, 2 minutes after giving birth, I am all alone and I wasn't sure what was going on with my baby boy.

I waited about an hour for them to find me a room. The hospital was very busy that day and I had the baby in the triage room. When they finally got me to a room the nurse wheeled me down to see by new born baby. He was beautiful. I was so in love. He was hooked up with oxygen and wires but I got to hold him for the first time for about a minute. I cried when I had to give him back.

Finally the doctor came over to talk. So overwhelmed by everything I tried so hard to listen and understand. Bottom line was, we had a very sick baby boy. He needed immediately to be rushed to Lebanon to get better care. I was so scared. What was I to tell people when they came to see the baby? At this point I didn't want any visitors. My two sister-in-laws, my nana and my brother was there to see the baby taken away by the transport team. I was a mess. I couldn't be discharged because I just gave birth so I couldn't go with him. After nine months with my baby, we were now a state away.

Jeremy and I went back to my room where  we ate lunch. Soon after that the nurse came in to tell me I had to move rooms, that they needed the room I was  in for a mom with a baby. She was very nice about it but I was hurt, I wish I had my baby. Instead of breast feeding, I was pumping and instead of taking care of my baby, I was reading all alone. This was awful. I couldn't wait to be with my baby. I just couldn't wait to hold him and kiss him.