otters and lemurs and bears, oh my!

ah, I could use a break from all things clinical and simply think about meerkats...
I know one family outing we are making in the future, and that is a trip to the Minnesota Zoo. I love the zoo. Christine and I went recently because they have a new exhibit that includes...

Yes! Sea Otters!
Who doesn't love otters?

And brown bears that swim up to you behind what is hopefully many inches of safety and well-sealed glass...
Bear paws!
There are also lemurs, and they are simply awesome. Finn now has a stuffed otter and a stuffed ring-tailed lemur. They are mine until he can learn to appreciate them.

SCN from the NICU

So far, not lovin' the Special Care.

Finn is doing great. He's sleeping, eating, pooping, and breathing. He's still off the cannula, and he has not had a spell since he moved. Best of all, as of yesterday, he was 5 pounds, 2 ounces. It's his "Andrew Weight." Andrew is my cousin who was born at 32 weeks and around 5 pounds. It's sort of my gold standard in preemie weight.

Special Care is Baby Training: the goal is to get the baby ready to come home and to get us ready to take care of him. That's great. I am all for it. I can even handle modifications to our routine to accommodate this, suspicious of change as I am. What I don't need, however, is to feel like I am doing things wrong. Or, to feel like the goal is to get him home to make the insurance company happy.

We got into a routine with the NICU, and we got to know the staff. We had two months there, after all. Now we are meeting new people and getting used to new surroundings, two experiences at which I am not very adept. I have tried to keep doing the things we do. We come in around his care times, we take his temperature and change his diaper, and we hold him. Even if it's not actually his care time, this is what I do. A few days ago, Pete gave me license to leave the house without him if I am ready and he is not. What I don't think he realized is that this means he would probably never get to see Finn in the morning, because I will be ready to go when he is still drinking his coffee.

The past two mornings, I managed to be ready by 7:30. Yesterday, I left, which put me at the hospital at around 8:00. I introduced myself to the nurse, who was new to me and taking care of another baby, washed my hands, and went to say hello to Finn. The nurse said "I wasn't expecting you until 9:00."

"Yeah, I did not wait for my husband, so I was able to get here earlier."

I took his temperature and started to unwrap the baby burrito to check his diaper.

"He doesn't eat until 9:00," the nurse said.

"I know. I am just going to get him out and give him a chance to nuzzle."

"We usually don't like to disturb them twice. I'll need to get his vitals at 9, and I'll have to bother him again. They need to conserve energy. And it's just that I have these other babies at 8:00, and I won't be able to help you."

"I don't need any help. I work, so my time is limited."

"Well you should let us know if you want to change his times, and we can do something that works more with your schedule."

"ok."

I got him out. He was sleeping, so I let him continue. There's no point in offering him boob if he's sleeping. Boob puts him to sleep as it is. I held him until it was getting close to his cares, at which point, he desat-ed, and his heart rate dropped. He does this; we are pretty used to it by now. His heartrate usually pops back up, but his sats may lag behind that a bit.

The nurse came over and immediately got in there, gave him blow-by O2, then took him from me and put him in the crib to stim (stimulate) him. I just sat there in the chair. I knew that he was fine; I knew that he did not need all of that, but it's her job, and I didn't feel like I could say anything. I had already ascertained that her personality was not a cuddly match with mine; the best thing I could do was suck it up and smile and nod.

She gave him back to me when his sats went back up, and we had a nice cuddle.

Today is bath day. If this is going to be our nurse, Pete will be doing the bath.

Focal Shift

I am sure that Special Care will grow on me, and I will be fine with it. Finn is doing well, and that's the most important thing, but at this moment, I am hating it. Of course, I am hating most everything right now. If I remember correctly, this is what PMS feels like. Everything is getting on my nerves, and since Pete is around me the most, he's bearing the brunt of my frustration. I spend a lot of time sitting on my hands or biting my tongue, trying not to explode into an unreasonable diatribe because something is not being done exactly my way. The only thing that is not bugging me is Finn himself; he's beyond reproach and blame. He even pooped all over the leetly blankey I knitted as well as his new "I Love My Daddy" sleeper, and I was pleased to take them home and soak them. Babies are supposed to poop on everything. He's a real baby. I have plenty of time to be sick of that sort of crap in the future.

I have my moments when I am feeling fine, but those are bright and shiny minutes until something trips my trigger and I am back in the frustration fog again. It's the usual American Litany of Woe: there's not enough time in the day, I'm too busy, It's too hard. Oh, woe is me! I am having a harder time shifting my focus and creating that zen of which I spoke. What's really so bad?

Let's have that talk with ourselves, shall we?

Special Care is in a huge hospital that is more labyrinthine and just getting there and getting in takes up even more precious time.

But Special Care is one step closer to home, and it also means that the boy is continuing to grow stronger.

There are too many things to do before he gets home and too little time.

Too bad. Those things have to be done and they will get done. Make a list and take it one item at a time. He needs a pediatrician? Look into the list the Dr. gave you, and choose one. Then call the insurance company. And check it off the list. Move on to the next thing.

The house is a mess, and there's no time to clean it.

See above. It has to be clean, so it will be clean. One thing at a time.

I need to be at the hospital more for boob training, and I am hardly at my desk as it is.

Work it out. That's all there is to it. You need to manage the time you have until he comes home and you have time off from the work part for awhile. No one can breastfeed, pump, and work for you. Someone will have to take over some of the other things. Get the list out. Delegate. In the mornings, get up right away, pump, eat breakfast, groom, and leave the house, even if you are heading out alone.

There. I feel better. There are more gripes, but at the moment, I can't even remember them. Just admitting that I am hitting a wall, at my wits' end, tearing my hair out--choose your hyperbole--helps me to accept it and breathe. Don't worry, those gripes will come to me the next time someone makes an idiot move on the road or Pete changes a diaper the wrong way (see: not my way).

Right now, The Bunker is calling. Time to pump.

Graduation from the NICU!

Pete here folks. So - today was a big day for Finn! He has been transferred out of the NICU and into the "Special Care Nursery" at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. Karen and I just got back from our first evening visit with Finn in his new diggs.

He was transferred this afternoon from Children's hospital - brought over on the transport isolette much like what he was brought to the NICU in back on May 29th at 3AM (Abbott Northwestern is where he was delivered, it's right next to Children's and connected via an underground tunnel). Karen has more on his transfer in an earlier blog (see "Tunnel").

Suffice to say that he is doing just fine in his new room, even though it's darker than Children's with less bright colors or fun decorations; and they have these crazy loud alarms that sound like they might have been previously used on a WWII-era German U-boat. He seems to be able to sleep through them though, thankfully (I'll be surprised if this kid ever wakes up to a regular alarm at home in the future).

I'll post more on my thoughts about the Special Care Nursery and our "decision" to have him transferred there soon. For now, I'm off to bed, where my lovely and talented wife awaits in what is hopefully her own deep slumber.

by the way... stats

2200 grams (4.85 pounds)
45.5 cm (17.9 inches)

and... and... a tunnel...

Pete made the trip through the tunnel with the baby again, but this time, he was not scared out of his wits, exhausted, and entirely freaked out. Finn was transferred over to the Special Care Nursery at around 1:00, and we accompanied him on his journey from his first home to his second. It was much less fraught with anxiety, though I did watch him and his monitor on the journey over. He's off his O2 again as of yesterday, but I expect him to go back on.

He slept through the whole event. Perhaps he enjoyed the jostling and rolling--he has not been moved around that much since he was in me.He had to get back into the transport womb with the whole set up.
Sleeping...
His new area at Special Care:

We'll keep him.

you don't say...

No one tells you that you might poop when you give birth.

Also, no one tells you that when you have your baby, you might not feel like it's your baby.

We're saturated in images of creamy, animated bluebird love for our brand new infant, but after nine months (or six) in utero, when you are suddenly handed this creature, amazing it may be, but it's hard to relate to reality. It's something that has never existed before. You were pregnant and used to the kicking and squirming from inside, and you had a closeness that can't be replaced. Then they hand you a red, sticky, crying form, and you're tired and in pain, and you're supposed to be suffused with joy.

I don't know what it is like to expect to feel joy, as I was filled with apprehension. I wasn't happy about the situation because I believed that the baby might not make it. I was in benign acceptance mode. When they placed him on my belly, I was amazed he was so big, surprised he was so maroon, and pleased to hear a little attempt at a cry, but I did not feel love. I felt fear. I wanted them to take him and make him live. Once I was back in my hospital room and allowed to leave, I did not want to go and see him. I waited until six o'clock in the morning to go over to the NICU because I was afraid. I did not start to love him until a week had passed, and that love has grown by degrees.

It's probably something mothers are not supposed to talk about. I didn't love my fetus, and I had to fall in love with my baby. But it's not just me; mothers of term babies have said similar things. It doesn't feel like it's your baby, it feels a little like an alien. Dads attach right away; they've been waiting for this for months. So have moms, but there's an accompanying sense of loss as well as a raging stream of hormones putting distance between you and the new arrival. I am sure that post partum depression is not helped by the guilt that new moms feel for not floating on a blissful cloud from the moment their baby is born.

My reactions when he was born are probably more common than one would think, especially when the baby is premature. Finn has love in unquantified amounts now, and that grows all the time. Even though he's never lived with us, I know and feel that he is mine, and I miss him more every day.