The NICU Drama

When Maddie was born it was a very traumatic delivery for her and a very difficult labor for me! I will do my best not to give out TMI. I was actively pushing for 1 hour and 54 minutes! And this did not include the time we spent pushing trying to get her into the best position for delivery. She wasn't breech or anything like that just facing the wrong way. She was at station 2 when delivered. And while she was in the birth canal her arm and hand were tucked up under her chin causing bruising. She's a little trooper!

You can barely see the bruising on her chin and left arm. But notice how her left arm is just laying there. She didn't move it very much at first.

When the nurse did her Apgar assessment she took a point off for muscle tone because she did not move her left arm quickly or strongly enough. She was also breathing very quickly and got a point off for respiration difficulties. This is what caused her to go to NICU. Apparently 1 in 10 babies is born with this respiratory condition. All it means is that when the baby is born there is still amniotic fluid in the lungs. It has a 50% chance of getting worse or not causing any problems at all. So Maddie was whisked away to NICU for observation.

In NICU she received a central line through her belly button to administer antibiotics and other fluids. Later that night/early morning she received a feeding tube and they used that up until Wednesday night. She was only there for three days but it was a difficult three days. NICU is very secure and you can't really have visitors and there's no window for people to go to in order to see the babies so that caused some frustration. And it was on the other side of the hospital which made it exhausting for me to go down there every three hours to feed her! But Codie was great about wheeling me down there those first few times when I couldn't walk!

Maddie in the NICU with her feeding tube

Needless to say it was not fun for her or us! She was taken away without Codie getting to hold her and I only got to hold her for a few seconds. They also gave her a bottle and pacifier while in NICU even though I had wanted to breastfeed. So we had some hitches in getting that started and established. In the end it all worked out and everyone is healthy. Like I told Codie I'd rather then err on the side of caution!