In the NICU

If there was one thing I did not expect in delivering a baby at 41 weeks it was a NICU stay, but that is exactly where Jillian is at this moment. Yesterday around 4pm she spiked a temperature of 102 degrees. That is when the chaos broke loose. Our family practice doc who we're using for Jillian's pediatrician recommended a bunch of tests that needed to be done in the NICU. Jeramy was at a union meeting, so I went over with the nurse to have them done. Needless to say I was pretty scared and emotional but had managed to keep some control. Well when we arrived in the NICU, we found out that out doc, Dr. M, had talked with the NICU doc, Dr. L, and decided to transfer her to the care of the NICU (first Dr. L told me this and then Dr. M talked to me about this on the nurse's cell phone. They wanted to give her antibiotics, and they cannot do this in labor and delivery. Plus they wanted to run all sorts of tests: CBC, chest x-ray, blood culture and spinal tap. Obviously now I'm completely in tears, trying to talk with Dr. L in some sort of coherent manner, and watching them start a bunch of procedures on Jillian. In the meantime my Aunt Cheryl had arrived to visit in the middle of all this, and was brought into the NICU with me. Plus the nurse had let me call Jeramy on her cell phone to get him back to the hospital. There were a million things happening and there were lots of scary words flying around from sepsis to meningitis. Right after Jeramy arrived and met Dr. L, they sent us back to our room so that they could do the spinal tap.

The good news is that the early tests and chest x-ray came back clean. They were not able to get any spinal fluid from the spinal tap, but they did not need to repeat it at this point at least. By later that night her temperature had also gone back down. This morning another NICU doc said she'll finish the rest of her antibiotics by tomorrow, and if her temp stays down we can probably take her home then. In the meantime, the on-call OB offered to let me stay in the hospital another day, which is more comfortable than hanging out in the NICU the whole time (although it is nice and Jillian has a private room). She's also now on a combination of breast feeding, pumping and supplementing with formula, but the lactation consultant here is excellent and has spent a lot of time with me trying to figure out how to make it work for the transition home. Prior to the NICU I had only breastfed her.

Anyhow, this is a long and rambling email. But honestly that is kind of the chaos that describes the past few days. I am thankful that at least we were still at the hospital, because except for the thermometer readings, Jillian did not seem at all sick. She didn't even feel feverish. They had kept me in the hospital one extra day because I was running a temperature during labor, which peaked right after delivery. So they needed to keep me on antibiotics for 24 hours after delivery and then monitor me for another 24 hours after that. They never figured out why I ran a temperature, but if it was an infection of some sort that could have been passed to Jillian. At this point, it is hard to say exactly what happened, but thankfully doctors are extremely cautious when it comes to infants.

Once again it feels like my blog title seems to resound with me. No matter how well I prepare, no matter how much I read, and no matter how straight forward my pregnancy may have been, I just cannot prepare for everything life hands to me.