Son is doing well and entirely ready to go home. The only delay is that the in-home nursing company we chose covers a few counties and hires local, job-specific nurses on a case-by-case basis. They are still working on finding enough staff.
Son has been approved for 16-hours / day of in-home nurse care for the first month, and then 12-hours / day for the next two months.
It's my hope that we're comfortable enough with providing all his care after three months of being home and won't need to request our insurance to approve more nursing time.
Son's throat suffered a lot of trauma with the six times that the breathing tube went in and out. His doctors decided enough was enough, and that giving him a stoma was the best option. For those of you that don't know what a stoma is, (No worries, I didn't know either but now it feels like I've been through nursing school with everything we've learned in the last 3 months), it's the hole that smoker's get put in their throat when they've smoked a few too many.
He now breathes through the stoma, and since vocal cords are in the throat area between mouth and stoma, he is unable to make a sound. There is no air going through that area to allow vocal cords to vibrate. We have the quietest baby ever. Children's hospital has already set us up with a speech therapist for when it comes time for him to start talking.
Since he's been fed through an NG tube (goes through his nose and down into his belly), eating orally is still a huge struggle, but we've been practicing with a "binky trainer" and he's managed to do well with it, for the most part.
Good news:
- He is entirely weened off morphine!!!
- Neurologists have determined that even though it's still up in the air about his mental capabilities, he has full hearing in both ears.
- Parents have determined that he's extremely cool.
3/15 is our new hopeful discharge date, but we'll see. Cross your fingers and toes!
***Update: 3/18 is the new hopeful discharge date. *sigh*.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Story of Son's Birth
Early labor pains started on Monday, December 17th, even though my mom swears I was already laboring when we got pedicures together the day before.
We are very lucky we knew ahead of time that Son had a birth defect, and wouldn't be able to breathe on his own once the cord was cut. He had about a dozen doctors assigned to his case before he was even born.
Our plan had been in place for weeks: Son would immediately leave me from his birth hospital and take an ambulance ride to Children's hospital.
When labor started at home, I called Children's Hospital every few hours to see if there was room for him yet.
"No" became the longest two letter word I've ever heard.
After days of agonizing stubborness, on the morning of Wednesday the 19th, my salvation presented itself when I received a call saying, "Yes, there is a bed for him." We immediately started getting ourselves ready to go while the car heated up. About 20 minutes later, another call came. My body has never felt so defeated: an emergency baby showed up and took priority over Son's bed.
The phone rang again in the late evening. A room had freed up. It was baby time.
I cried all the way to Seattle and recanted at least 150 times (I'm not exaggerating) that I was so scared. So scared. SO scared. Hey Dan, did you hear me? I'm SO scared. We knew Son would be a C-Section baby and even after knowing that factor for over a month, I might of well been walking the Green Mile to my death because of how scared I was.
I've never had surgery. I hate needles. I hate taking pills. I hate people looking at and touching my bare body.
The first step was putting an IV into my left hand. I've never felt so lightheaded as I did when I saw the giant jumble of needles and tubes taped to my hand. Next, two nurses stripped my lower half and shaved everything from my belly button to my upper thigh. Lovely.
I watched Dan put on the blue surgical gowns. Even his presence did little to comfort me. Have I mentioned yet that I was extremely scared?!
I had to wave goodbye to my husband while being pushed into surgery yet was being reassured that someone would fetch him before the procedure started.
I was put on a table in front of about 8-10 doctors, naked.
I was painted orange with sanitizer.
I had to slump over in a very specific position so eight very painful shots could be perfectly placed in my back.
Then a surgeon with a needle appeared to take pleasure in stabbing around my body to test where I still had feeling.
The main surgeon promised me during prenatal appointments that she'd hold my baby up over the sheet for a quick glimpse before being whisked away to get worked on. She's a liar. From my side of the sheet, I heard someone say something along the lines of, "And now the baby's here."
Dan looked over the sheet, looked back at me, fully smiling with tears in his eyes and said, "He's all there. You did it, Babe." I started crying and waited for the glorious noise that every new parent wants to hear.
Nothing.
Fearing the worst, I asked Dan, "Why isn't he crying?" He responded that Son had already been taken from the room. It all happened so quick.
Three days passed before I was able to get transported from my hospital to his and ride a wheelchair to his bedside.
Not the ideal natural, water birth I had in mind, but such is life. Would I do it again for him? Yes.
We are very lucky we knew ahead of time that Son had a birth defect, and wouldn't be able to breathe on his own once the cord was cut. He had about a dozen doctors assigned to his case before he was even born.
Our plan had been in place for weeks: Son would immediately leave me from his birth hospital and take an ambulance ride to Children's hospital.
When labor started at home, I called Children's Hospital every few hours to see if there was room for him yet.
"No" became the longest two letter word I've ever heard.
After days of agonizing stubborness, on the morning of Wednesday the 19th, my salvation presented itself when I received a call saying, "Yes, there is a bed for him." We immediately started getting ourselves ready to go while the car heated up. About 20 minutes later, another call came. My body has never felt so defeated: an emergency baby showed up and took priority over Son's bed.
The phone rang again in the late evening. A room had freed up. It was baby time.
I cried all the way to Seattle and recanted at least 150 times (I'm not exaggerating) that I was so scared. So scared. SO scared. Hey Dan, did you hear me? I'm SO scared. We knew Son would be a C-Section baby and even after knowing that factor for over a month, I might of well been walking the Green Mile to my death because of how scared I was.
I've never had surgery. I hate needles. I hate taking pills. I hate people looking at and touching my bare body.
The first step was putting an IV into my left hand. I've never felt so lightheaded as I did when I saw the giant jumble of needles and tubes taped to my hand. Next, two nurses stripped my lower half and shaved everything from my belly button to my upper thigh. Lovely.
I watched Dan put on the blue surgical gowns. Even his presence did little to comfort me. Have I mentioned yet that I was extremely scared?!
I had to wave goodbye to my husband while being pushed into surgery yet was being reassured that someone would fetch him before the procedure started.
I was put on a table in front of about 8-10 doctors, naked.
I was painted orange with sanitizer.
I had to slump over in a very specific position so eight very painful shots could be perfectly placed in my back.
Then a surgeon with a needle appeared to take pleasure in stabbing around my body to test where I still had feeling.
The main surgeon promised me during prenatal appointments that she'd hold my baby up over the sheet for a quick glimpse before being whisked away to get worked on. She's a liar. From my side of the sheet, I heard someone say something along the lines of, "And now the baby's here."
Dan looked over the sheet, looked back at me, fully smiling with tears in his eyes and said, "He's all there. You did it, Babe." I started crying and waited for the glorious noise that every new parent wants to hear.
Nothing.
Fearing the worst, I asked Dan, "Why isn't he crying?" He responded that Son had already been taken from the room. It all happened so quick.
Three days passed before I was able to get transported from my hospital to his and ride a wheelchair to his bedside.
Not the ideal natural, water birth I had in mind, but such is life. Would I do it again for him? Yes.
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