The first couple of weeks after Maya was born were really tough on us. Because she was born before 37 weeks (36 weeks 2 days) she automatically had to go to the NICU for a minimum of 24 hours of observation. Her stay extended to 11 days. Initially I did get some time with her in the recovery room but once they took her away it was another 6 hours or so, when the spinal started to wear off and they had me get out of bed, that I could finally visit her in the NICU. Longest hours of my life!
They had to put an IV in her hand to help regulate her blood sugar. It was so hard seeing an IV in her tiny hand, but they turned it off after a couple of days and took it out not long after that. Otherwise she was maintaining her temp and breathing fine on her own. They told us she would likely go home with us when we were discharged. Well, after a couple of days she got pretty bad jaundice and had to have light therapy. They wanted to make sure her levels were declining after 24 hours of light therapy before discharging her, which they did. Then they started getting concerned about her weight loss. Some nurses made it seem as though it was a huge concern though later the nurse practitioner told us that it was at 8% loss, which is within the acceptable range of up to 10% that happens for all newborns. I think they were more worried because she was so small to begin with. At her lowest she was 4lbs 3oz. They became so concerned with her intake that they were going solely off what she took from the bottle which pushed us away from breastfeeding. I was discharged on Saturday, 4 days later, but they wanted to watch her for another night before she went home. They were able to get us a spot in one of the 2 free family rooms they have for the night.
We thought we would get to take her home the next day but when we showed up in the morning they told us she was having issues with her oxygen saturation. She was still breathing but her levels had dropped to 70% once in the night. They wanted to watch her for another 24 hours to make sure it didn't happen again before discharging her. We got the room for another night and then found out the next day that she had a few more episodes and that she wasn't going home yet. On the 8th night they ended up putting her on oxygen. They told us that we could take her home after 24-48 hours of observation. They did a couple of room air challenges in that time where they took her off of oxygen to see how long she could last before her oxygen saturation dropped. She failed one in 4 minutes but passed the second one. She also had to do a car seat challenge which they said she probably would have failed without oxygen. At that point it was either keep her there for more observation or go home on oxygen. Well of course we wanted to take her home! We got to take her home on Christmas Eve on oxygen and a pulse-oximeter, which detects pulse and oxygen levels.
As we stepped in the elevator carrying her car seat, it was so surreal. It was amazing that after two and a half years, the loss and heartache, and the roller coaster pregnancy and first days of Maya's life, that we were finally getting to take this beautiful little person home with us.
