The Rollercoaster at the Kiddie Park

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

(Big) Tera's mother sent me this scripture in an email today, and it perfectly explains all aspects of our day.

Day of Life: 13

What Happened Last Night

After her big move to the CCN (which stands for Continuing Care Nursery), Tera had a very uneventful evening. She lost 11 grams and has now dropped just below 1000 to 999 grams. The doctors did decide to increase her feeds to 10cc. I thought that they would increase her feedings at a slower rate, but they must think she can handle it. Her bili numbers were up to just under 6, which is the low-end of her risk zone. We're thinking she'll probably be under the lights by the end of the day.

She gets more precious everyday.

What Actually Happened Today

Our morning was very uneventful. The biggest part of the morning was trying to find my necklace. The day before, I had taken it off in Tera's old room so that I could hold her. I remember taking it off, but I couldn't remember where I put it. Because we weren't there when the decision was made to move Tera, Stacey had packed up our room all by herself, so I didn't know where she might have put it. When we got to the CCN this morning, I couldn't find it in our room anywhere, so I went up to the NICU and was allowed to look in the old room. One nurse even searched through the Charge Nurse's office to find it. She went so far as to call Stacey to see if she remembered where she put it. I returned to the CCN almost in tears.

The necklace was given to me by my sister a few days ago. It has a "T" charm on it so that I can "carry Tera around with me even when I leave her." Because I can't wear any jewelry on my hands or fingers when I scrub in each morning, I have also put my wedding rings on the chain. Ann Steiner has promised to get me a "C" charm so that I can have the whole family right there together. I was devastated that I had lost it. When I got back to the room, I decided to look again in a bag that I bring everyday to carry in my milk. I had opened it to put the milk in at the house and again to take the milk out at the hospital, and I had not seen the necklace. But now when I opened it, there's the necklace. I felt like such a fool, but I was also just so excited to have my family back.

The rest of the morning was much more boring. Since nothing was going on, MyGoo and I decided to run some errands when we went out to lunch. Our friends, Bob and Jamie, had their second child this morning. She came about 7:30 a.m., weighing a monstrous 6 lbs. 12 ounces. Tera's already smaller than most people younger than she is. Welcome to my world, baby! After lunch, we ran to Buy Buy Baby (ok, we spent 45 minutes in there - there's no quick trip to Buy Buy Baby) to buy Eleanor and her new baby sister, Caroline, a present.

When we returned to the hospital, things were much the same. Tera did end up going back under the bilirubin lights.

I know this picture is not the greatest, but it shows my hand cuddling her head and holding her hand. This is something that Stacey always did for her, and she really seemed to like it.

MyGoo and I spent the next three hours swapping between the couch/recliner and looking at Tera. It was another very boring and eventless afternoon. Don't get me wrong. I'm ok with boring right now. It means nothing bad is happening. Tera desat-ed several times throughout the afternoon, but she was able to recover on her own. I've become so accustomed to the sounds of those machines that I typically barely notice when the dings start. Once her numbers get low enough, however, the dings turn to louder dings. The louder dings happened much more often today than normal. But again, the afternoon was overly uneventful, and I just kept thinking, "be still." Part of this experience is just to be still.

About 5:15, MyGoo and I began making plans to go visit Bob and Jamie before going to dinner with Sam and Alicia. We were about five minutes from leaving when Amy came in to check how Tera was handling her feedings. She'd only had two rounds of her new 10cc dosage. Amy found 3cc of residuals and it had a strange look about it. When she measured her belly (I think this is called checking her girth), she found that it was 1.5 cm larger than it had been at the previous measure. Also, Tera has not had a bowel movement today. She's had traces of them in her diapers, but nothing significant. Amy decided to stimulate that particular part of her body to get her to go. MyGoo was fortunate enough to watch the whole thing. When Amy rubbed the swab around her bottom, poop literally squirted out (yucky!). I hate I missed that joyful experience. Sometimes nursing has its perks! Apparently, Amy was not impressed with how those excretions looked, so she did a test on them and found that there was a little bit of blood in her stool. She wasn't too worried about it yet, but she called a doctor to come check her to make sure.

The doctor arrived minutes later and examined Tera's stomach. She said that it was soft (good thing) and that everything seemed to be ok. To be sure, she decided to withhold her next feeding and instead increase her fluids a bit. At her next feeding, she would return to her previous meal of 8cc. Then we would see how she was doing. The oxygen level in her isolette had also been steadily increasing throughout the day. It started at 26% and by this time was at 33%. Amy said that she would keep it there for awhile. If Tera wasn't feeling well, she didn't need the extra stress of having to work harder than necessary to breathe. She also said that we shouldn't bother her. The plan was to turn down the lights and just let her relax for the next three hours to see if things would perk up. I was a little nervous about it all, but I knew there was nothing we could do there. And I was worried that the beeping machines I had so easily ignored earlier in the day would now send me over the edge. We decided to follow through with our dinner plans with Sam and Alicia.

"Know that I am there." We have lived out the full scripture now.

I called in to Dianne (the night nurse) after dinner to see how things had progressed. Her stomach was back down to its previous size and was still soft. She had just taken her first 8cc feeding since the original scare. Dianne's thought was that her increased girth could possibly have had to do with the fact that she was trying to have a bowel movement at the time of measuring, and her stomach had swelled up under the strain. The slightly bloody stool could possibly have been due to a blood vessel popping after she was stimulated to poop. And the need for increased oxygen might have been because someone left one of the doors to her bed open. WHAT? Tera's bed is pushed up against the wall so that you can only access one side of it. When the bili lights were put on earlier today, the bed was pulled away from the wall to get the lights on that side. I guess someone either opened it and forgot to close it or it just accidentally popped open when the lights banged up against it. Either way, I was a little ticked that the opened door went unnoticed all day long. Dianne did not seem to mind, however, so I tried to get over it.

I've been thinking all day about how different the CCN is than the NICU. The nurses are just as nice and just as smart and competent, but the whole atmosphere down here is different. At the NICU, there was a nurse in and out of our room every five or ten minutes. They would just look at her to make sure she was breathing ok, even though the monitors told them that she was. They would write in her chart, make the tiniest changes in her position, anything to make her a little bit better than she was five minutes ago. It wasn't intrusive or frustrating. It was comforting. I think MyGoo and I sat in the room for 45 minutes one time today with no sight of anyone. Again, it's not that they are not as good at their jobs. It's just a different way of doing things down here. The babies are more "stable" so maybe they don't need as much constant attention. Last night, when we met Dianne, she said that she had worked in the NICU for fifteen years before she got "too old" and moved down to the CCN. I thought that was a pretty good way to sum up this floor. Things just move slower.

So, you can imagine why I was a little peaved when I learned that her door had been left open. Susan or Stacey or Shannon or Sandra or Helen or Beaonica would never have let that happen. I know people make mistakes, and I think now I'm going to have to make fewer of them than usual. You can rest assured my eyes will be constantly checking that portal door. This is kind of like having a full-term baby. At first, everybody else does everything for you. Then finally, you're thrown into the pit to fend for yourself. I'm not completely fending for myself here, but I'm definitely going to start taking more responsibility.

Another rollercoaster evening. Thankfully, it is one of only a couple since we got here, and it really turned out to be not as big of a deal as we thought. Just like the rides at the Kiddie Park. When you're a kid, these rides can be very intimidating at first. When you finally take a ride and make it through, however, you feel more sure of yourself. You're better prepared to handle the next ride at the park.

What About Barry and Canon

My guys continue to do well, I think. I talked to Sharon this morning, and she sent me these pictures of Canon. They were taken at her house last week.

Poor cat! New rule: Canon is never allowed to hold Tera.

When Barry and I got to talk at the end of the day, it was just after Tera's stomach scare. All I could talk about was that, so I honestly don't even know what they did today. I was able to talk to Canon for a little bit before he went to bed. He pretty much just says "Hey, Mama" "La Loo, Mama" and "Bye, Bye, Mama," and even that's only after Barry says it first. But it's still nice to hear.