Wishing things were different...

Artie's enjoying some time at home, and away from the hospital, with Avery so I thought I would spend the time by myself posting instead of crying.

The last few days have felt like a nightmare that I just cannot wake up from.  I am so grateful that things aren't worse.  We were probably just a few hours from possibly losing our beautiful baby and so I am so thankful for the nursery staff being so quick to catch that something was wrong. My whole pregnancy I was constantly told that things looked great. When Spencer was born, he was given an apgar score of 10 (for us non medical pros, that's the highest!). Nurses couldn't say enough how healthy he seemed. Then, a few hours after he was born, he went to the nursery to be checked by the pediatrician doing rounds, he never came back. It was the worst moment of my life having the pediatrician come to my room without my baby. At that point he said Spencer was being admitted to NICU because his bilirubin count was near 13. For a baby only a few hours old, that was drastic (it ended up near 15 before his transfusion). He said a neonatal pediatrician would be taking over and let us know more. About 3 long hours later that dr. came to tell us that the issue was his blood and after doing blood work on him they had determined that I had passed him antibodies that he was incompatible with and his red blood cells were attacking themselves/breaking down very rapidly (I'm A positive, so this wasn't an Rh negative (RhD) factor, I believe it was RhE, which is very rare and I developed them while pregnant with Avery). The only way to save Spencer was to do a replacement transfusion. At 3:30 yesterday morning they came down to my room to get our consent on the transfusion. From about 4am - 8am, the doctor would take out 5 mL of Spencer's blood and replace this blood with 5 mL of the donor's blood. Once they were comfortable that Spencer was tolerating the donor blood, they finished the transfusion taking 10 mL and replacing with 10mL. He received 400 total mL. It's a delicate process because they have to time the transfusion right or you aren't taking out just the bad blood. It was a relief for that to be over.

Since he has been in NICU, we haven't been able to hold him, let alone barely touch him. Since he's under all of the lights, he has a mask on over his eyes-all you can see is his nose. I'm so afraid he's not going to know who I am. It has been sheer torture having my room on the postpartum floor. I have no baby to take care of and all I listen to are babies crying around me. I only hope the parents aren't taking for granted how lucky they are to have their baby with them. I think it's evil that I have to walk past the nursery every time I go to visit my baby-a long walk and a whole floor above me. Because of MRSA, I have to wear a gown and gloves when I do go into his room, I don't even get to touch him with my skin (hopefully that freakin' test comes back later today negative so I finally get to feel his skin again).

Today, his bilirubin has been good each time it's tested so they moved the tests out to 8 hrs instead of every 6. His platelets dropped though this morning so the doctor is a little concerned with that and he isn't able to fed again today. It's too risky to fed him because of the stress it my put on his intestines and could cause bleeding. I'm just heartbroken for him. He has wires everywhere, a catheter in his belly button, a tube down his throat, an IV with a splint. He doesn't get snuggled or kissed or sung to. He's such a trooper and so good for the nurses despite all of this. On the bright side, the doctor did have one of the lights taken off of him today. He's down to just 3 lights and a blanket. Artie and I also got to hold him for a combined half hour. I hadn't held him since I was in recovery Wednesday. I just stared at his face because I forgot what he looked like since I have only seen him with a mask on for the past 2 days. The doctor also told us that she's pretty sure we're out of the woods as far as Spencer having to have another replacement transfusion (which we were worried about). On the down side, I will get discharged tomorrow and he won't. I can't believe I will be going home without my son. It's going to be awhile before he comes home, even if things keep going well. If something takes a bad turn, it's going to be even longer. We are so blind sided by this because there was never any indication anything was wrong. We are so thankful that it was caught when it was-normally they don't even check bilirubin until the next morning-we wouldn't have Spencer if that had been the case. I got to change one of his diapers today for the first time and I was in heaven. His NICU help has been wonderful too and we're grateful for that. 

Now I will go home and get to spend the time with Avery and try to get to the hospital as much as possible to be with Spencer. It will be challenging since I can't drive and Avery can't come with us...I want to thank everyone so much for their support and extra prayers. I know that has definitely helped Spencer through this. I hope to get to share some new pictures soon. I can't wait to share news with you on when he gets to come home!