NICU

Okay, I think I'm emotionally okay to talk about this now. (I say this as my eyes start to tear up)

The first night in the hospital was a really rough one for us, especially Oscar. We had decided that for the first night in the hospital we would have Oscar stay in the nursery so we could get some good rest. It's a good thing because at about 4am a nurse came in and told me that they had admitted him to the NICU because his oxygen level was low, he had fluid in his lungs and he was not eating. I didn't know what to think, I was so drugged up on pain meds from the surgery that I think I just went back to sleep with the news not really sinking in. When I finally woke up is when the news sunk in and I was so confused. They told us we could go see him whenever we wanted so we made the trip to the NICU. (Now remember I'm recovering from a c-section so it took a lot of energy just to get out of bed and into the wheelchair.) No one could prepare themselves for what we walked into...

We were not prepared to see him with all these tubes hooked up to him and coming from him. It broke our hearts. They wouldn't let us hold him, because they were not sure how long he was going to be in the NICU and hooked up to all the machines and they didn't want to have to train us on how to hold him with all of the tubes. Turns out he was in there for the entire 3 days that I was in the hospital so eventually they did let us hold him.

This was only the second time that I was able to hold my son. We were up in our room and I was having a really hard time dealing with the fact that I just had a baby and I couldn't hold, cuddle and love on him. So we went back to the NICU. We got there 10 minutes before shift change. They make everyone leave so that when they do have the shift change it goes smoothly. When we got to Oscar's room, the nurse could tell I was having a really hard time emotionally and that I needed my son in my arms. Without saying a word she went over and picked him up and placed him in my arms and I immediately felt complete. Needless to say they did not make us leave for the shift change.

For the next 3 days, they would come and get me every 4 hours to go to the NICU for Oscars feedings. This was so hard physically but I knew I had to do it and I have an amazing husband who helped me every time!

When they finally released him from the NICU (he was released the day I was able to leave the hospital) they brought him up to us just in time for him to go under the lights for his jaundice.

It was so bittersweet because I finally had my son with me in the room, but now I couldn't hold him. We had to rent a billibed from Intermountain Health Care to take home with us where he was under the lights for the next 2 days. We were so relieved when we were finally able to return the lights!