The NICU Experience

After I was all sewn up from the c-section, the nurse brought Lindy into my room to nurse her. Her blood sugar was only 48 when she was born. After feeding her, her blood sugar dropped to 29. It was scary! They took her to NICU and put in an IV to give her a sugar water drip. Later that night she also developed jaundice. It was SO hard to see my baby in NICU with so many tubes and wires attached to her, especially in her head.

The first night in NICU we were able to come in and hold her and Brad & Miranda came in and got to hold her as well and take pictures. However, the next couple of days were not so good. The NICU nurses we had were AWFUL! They wouldn't let me hold Lindy. I could hold her to feed her and then they would take her away and make me leave the room. They wouldn't let anybody else in and one even told me that Allan couldn't hold her. I was so incredibly frustrated. It was hard enough to have Lindy in NICU but to not be able to hold her almost killed me. I could understand that if she was premature or had a serious illness that people shouldn't hold her, but she didn't! It was just low blood sugar! It was such a terrible experience. One nurse even yelled at my mom for taking Lindy out of her bed. It was so stupid. She told me to come down to feed her but when we got there, the nurse just sat in her chair. She didn't come in to get her and didn't even say anything to us like, "Just give me a minute and I'll come get her for you." So after sitting there for a few minutes, my mom took her out and gave her to me since I wasn't able to do so. The nurse wigged out. She told my mom that it was her (the nurse's) license that she was messing with. Once again, so stupid. She should've said or done something to prevent it then, right?

I finally broke down on Wednesday night when they kicked Allan out of the room. He started to doze off in the chair and the nurse told him he couldn't do that because he could fall out of the chair and so she kicked him out of the room. She also said to him before he left, "Why are YOU tired? You got a good night's sleep!" I was LIVID! He actually had stayed up with me all night and then gotten up early to go to work so he had plenty of reason. But even if he didn't, she has no right to say that.

So after the feeding I went back to my room and starting bawling. My mom was there and she is very feisty and definitely a mother bear and she took me right back downstairs and had a little chat with the head nurse who apologized profusely for everything.

After the chat with the head nurse, we didn't see either of the bad nurses again and things got infinitely better. The new nurses were so helpful and encouraging and let me hold Lindy as much as I want and the same for Allan. They didn't object when my parents wanted to hold her either. The best thing about this is that since we've been holding her so much, Lindy has gotten so much better! Her blood sugars are very stable and breast feeding is going a lot more smoothly.

We found out just tonight that Lindy will be coming home on Sunday at the earliest. Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'd really like her home.