When Whitney was born, there were so many blessings that our family received. It was an extremely difficult birth for me, especially compared to how peaceful Trista's birth was. I couldn't have an epidural and delivered on my sciatic nerve. I had an oxygen mask on the whole time, and had to lay in a kinked position to relieve compression from the baby's cord. With every contraction I felt like I was under water. I had to focus all of my energy on breathing in. I was shaking and could barley hear the voices of the people around me. After she was born we almost lost her. I received a bill from the NICU about two weeks ago for Newborn Resuscitation. It brought back those moments when we weren't sure what was going to happen. When she was born, she was totally purple and was making no attempts to breathe at all. Her APGAR was a 4. About five minutes later, and still no sound from the baby, while my doctor was stitching me up he turned around and said, "What is going on over there!" No one answered. T.J. said that was the scariest moment for him. When she finally started trying to breathe a few minutes later, she made the most eerie drowning sounds. It was so busy in the delivery room. When it was all said and done, there had been 18 people there. Her stomach and lungs were both pumped and she was taken to the NICU. She spent two days there, and then I got to have her in my room with me for one day.
The day we were supposed to be discharged, she started vomiting in her bassinet at 3 in the morning. I was so grateful that I was awake and a nurse happened to be in the room with me and was able to help her. She went back to the NICU for tests. She was so jaundiced that it was making her sick. I was asked my blood type too many times to count. Her jaundice level was so high, they thought that it had to be from a blood incompatibility. The doctor thought that maybe it happened because of bruises she had from delivery. I was discharged that day, but Whitney had to stay in the NICU for two more days in the billi-bed for light therapy. Whenever I visited her, I tried to be really quiet. There were two other babies there that were a much worse off. One had sepsis, and would probably die. The family never left the NICU and just held the baby and cried. The other baby was very premature and wouldn't be going home for about a month. I was so grateful that Whitney's big problems were taken care of and that her jaundice was slowly going away. I knew that we had been so blessed, and was so sad for those other two mommies. I tried to keep my voice down, and whisper how happy I was that she was getting better. Whitney was laying on her tummy once when I came to visit her and lifted up her head and then turned it from one side to the other trying to see me. At three days old! She also liked to hold on to my hands. I would just stand there at her little light bed, holding on to her, letting her hold on to me as long as she wanted to, even though my back was killing me. :)
The hospital had a nesting suite that I was able to stay in so that I could nurse the baby. I was so happy to be able to stay with her. I would have had a hard time going home without her. It was a little room in the NICU that had a couch and a television. The hospital fed me, but I had to use the public bathroom. Yep, with a peri-bottle and phone book sized maxi pads in tow. I went looking in the middle of the night and found a large family bathroom that worked out just fine. Whitney was still so jaundiced that she shouldn't have been released yet, but she had made so much progress in those two days that the nursery thought it would be okay. They told me that it would take at least four weeks for her jaundice to completely go away. I was so happy to be able to take her home. Trista had been wondering if Mom and the baby were ever going to come home. I was gone for six days. T.J. did bring Trista to the hospital everyday to see me. It was hard being away from her for that long. We settled in and are so glad for the way that everything turned out. We were blessed to have so many people available to help us right when we needed it. The hospital wasn't busy at all when I had her, and my nurse stayed with me the whole time. It was like having my own labor coach. She was so sweet to me and gave me such a wonderful hug when it was all over. I found out when I got home that she is my best friends aunt.
Trista took to Whitney right away and loves to spend time with her and read her stories.
Here is a picture from Whitney's first bath. She loves to have her hair washed.
The last week of January, when Whitney was nine weeks, I took both girls to the doctor. They both had colds, which I found out was actually RSV. I was so surprised to hear the doctor say it. She told me that I took them both in so early that the baby's RSV hadn't turned into pneumonia yet. She did have a lung infection, bronchiolitis. She responded to breathing treatments, so she didn't have to go to the hospital. It was pretty touch and go with Whitney for about two weeks. She got worse before she got better, so she was seen at the pediatrician almost every day for a week. I don't know how many times I have been to the pediatrician so far this year.
I dearly love our pediatrician. She was my nurse when I was a baby. She was on call at the hospital when I had Trista. She walked into the room and knew who I was. She introduced herself to T.J. and told him that when I was five, my mom took me in to see her because I had blisters on the bottoms of my feet. I had run outside to the sidewalk in the middle of the summer. Our family have been patients of Mesa Pediatrics for three generations now. Dr. Kerr saw my mom when she was a little girl, me, and Trista. His nurse Leslie saw me and now sees both of my babies. I will be so sad when she retires.
So the last three weeks have been nothing but bulb syringes, tissues, infants tylenol, children's ibuprofen, thermometers, nasal spray, saline solution, and breathing treatments. I cringe every time I look at my night stand. For a week I was giving Whitney a breathing treatment every hour. I thank my sweet sister in law Cami for calling in a favor from her best friend Marnie, and for Marnie for letting me borrow her nebulizer. Sweet Leslie at Mesa Peds told me that she was worried about us, and thought about us often. Now that the RSV is almost gone, she told me that she was so afraid that we would end up loosing Whitney after all. Having RSV at just nine weeks was pretty scary.
Whitney is almost better now, just a little raspy when she breathes and coughs a little. I was told this part can last about 6 weeks. I can tell that she feels better. She is smiling so much now, it seems that she is making up for lost time. It is the highlight of my day to hear her start to laugh. She is just now learning how to do it. I am so happy every time I hear her coo and giggle, and talk back and forth to me. I would do it all over again 100 times.
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