No More Drama Llama
My baby is now 3 years old. We all know time flies by so fast, but all the momma's and daddy's out there REALLY get what I am talking about. All of a sudden my 1 pound 10 ounce baby is tall and 40 pounds. Did someone slip him some cake from Alice in Wonderland?
Having a 3 year old in our life is much more hectic than the old days where my husband and I would cook a nice dinner and plop in front of the tv, or spend hours reading a book or playing video games. Now we are keeping up with our busy jobs and trying to fit in birthday parties, swim class and soccer games. Yes, things get busy and chaotic, but then I go back and think about the drama of the NICU days.
The NICU days involved serious real life threatening drama. There was drama at the time of Finn's entrance to the world and drama throughout the entire 113 days of the NICU stay. We spent hours watching and listening to the monitors in the nursery, and we witnessed countless desat and brady episodes. Nurses had to run over to our isolette and stimulate Finn to get him breathing again. The doctor was lucky and happened to see the beginning of NEC from an unrelated X-ray. Antibiotics were started immediately, and the infection never got bad. We waited day by day to see if he would need to go through surgery to rectify PDA in his heart. Eye exams found that he had stage 2 ROP in both eyes. Finn went through numerous blood transfusions, and everyday his feet were getting poked to check blood gasses.
A specific dramatic event that sticks with me is when I got a report that Finn failed his hearing test. He was in the progressive nursery at the time. One evening after a long day at work, then hours sitting in the nursery with Finn, my husband and I found the report in the mailbox near Finn's crib. Someone had tested his hearing that day, and he failed! Nothing had been mentioned to me about it. The nurse on duty at the time did not know anything about it. I knew that long term problems were possible with a baby born at 24 weeks, but this came out of nowhere. At that moment I started thinking that maybe that is why Finn was the best behaved baby in the nursery. All the nurses commented on his dispotion and that he rarely cried. My first thought was that it must be because he doesn't hear. The nurse on duty said she would leave a note with the doctor so that we could discuss the test. After enduring a long night, the doctor called in the morning and gave me reassuring news. Appararently it is common for babies in the hospital to fail their first hearing test when they are on oxygen. We would have to wait until he was off the oxygen before we would know for sure, but this was a relief! That is just one more specific example of the dramatic ups and downs that a preemie parent goes through.
I am greatlful for the chaos of our current days. NO MORE DRAMA LLAMA for us. We survived the NICU experience with our baby.
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