Camden- the NICU

We arrived in our temporary home and I couldn't wait to just spend some time with our newest addition and my husband. 

My sisters were texting and trying to figure out when they could come meet him. My sister was the first person to meet my first nephew when he was born...even before my mom. As you can imagine..that still makes us all laugh. She still gloats about it and my mom still pretends to not be annoyed by it. 

Looks like it was going to happen again. 

J rolled in and snatched him up and about 3 minutes later K walked in. There was a slight competition on who got to meet him first..and once again J won. The memory of them both looking at him for the first time is a pretty fantastic one....I probably won't even forget it. Some funny stuff happened...that I will add in here before I print this book because I definitely don't want to forget it. 

Mom, dad, and the boys were not far behind. 

So at this point...no one, besides Thane's mom and now my sisters, knew that Camden was a boy. People thought my mom knew so they were threatening to just call her and ask but jokes on them...mom didn't know either. My mom is the biggest reason we decided to not find out the gender this round and I couldn't wait for her to find out. 

I had a plan that if BS3 was a girl..I was going to mess with mom. The original plan was that I was going to have a blue hat on the baby when she walked in but then have a onesie that said something like "Just kidding! I'm a girl!" But let's be real..I didn't get around to making the onesie and turns out I didn't need it. 

So they walk in..our boys are super pumped to see us and holding balloons so excited to meet their new sibling. Mom is all smiles and anxiously looking at us...we don't announce it. I told mom that the baby needed a diaper change and asked if she could do it. I made Thane record it as she took Camden over to his bed to change him and she asked Parker if he wanted to help. He of course didn't know either and was reeeeeeeeeally hoping for a sister so he ran over quickly. 

I think they were both moral support for each other when they took the diaper off. Not the reaction I was expecting from either of them because they were both really happy...and sworn to secrecy. 

In the meantime, C still wasn't eating well. 

I am always honestly a little nervous to feed our kids right away so I was leaving that up to Thane. It's not the most comfortable to figure out how to bottle feed a baby when you can't sit up comfortably. Thane tried a few times and Camden wasn't taking much food at all. He wasn't doing a good job latching on the bottle. Every blood sugar test they took was lower than it needed to be and they started throwing out "NICU" if it didn't go back up. 

I still wasn't worried. I was so naive. Parker had been fine. Camden will be fine too. 

Finally our nurse nervously asked if she could try to feed him. I'm sure she was worried we would be upset or something but I gladly told her to try. C needed to eat and I didn't care who got him to. She did a few trick and finally got him to latch and take more mls than he had had all day. They were hopeful that would help his blood sugar and we wouldn't have to worry. 

Near the end of the boy's and grandparent's visit the nurses came back in to test him and warned me that if it came back low...this was the last test. He would have to go to the NICU.

They pricked his foot, did the test, and looked up at me to shake their head. 

He had to go. 

I felt like I had been hit by a truck. My biggest fear was coming true...one of my babies was going to the NICU. What if he couldn't come home with us? I didn't have daycare for the boys anymore...how was I going to come in and be with him? How do people even do that with little ones at home?

Thane left with Camden and the nurse and I stayed behind with our family trying to process what was going on while not losing it in front of the boys. I watched them walk out and I was just thankful the boys were able to meet their brother before he had to leave. 

I expected Thane to be back quickly but I swear he was gone for more than an hour. I had no idea where he was or what they were doing... talk about anxiety. 

He finally came back and gave me the low down. Camden would have to have consistent passing numbers on his blood sugar test and be able to hold his temperature before he could come back. Those numbers were *much* higher in the NICU than on our floor. He would be there for at least 24 hours and then as long as it took. 

I cried. 

I had this illusion that he was just going up there to get some tests done and he'd be right back. What was I thinking? Of course he'd have to stay and be monitored. We got a wheel chair and Thane took me up. I was obviously not able to walk yet and even getting out of bed at that point was ridiculous. 

He took me up, showed me how to get the hand sanitizer and sign in, and showed me to Camden's new room. I was not prepared for what I saw. 

Cords...so many cords. An IV stand. A monitor beeping with his breathing and heart rate. It was like we were in a bad movie. My tiny baby laying there hooked up to all those cords. Overwhelmingly awful. 

I was able to hold him thankfully but could only do it for a little bit because it hurt how I sitting. Then I just got to stare at Thane holding him. 

After about an hour I was dying. My butt was numb from the wheelchair and I was in pain, due for meds. Thane offered the recliner he was sitting in but I had already been eyeing it up for that hour. It looked way too low for me to get into without tearing something open..and then it may take the whole staff to get me out. I was stuck in my chair. 

We gave him back and had to head back down. 

That night around 3am I woke up. Everything about this was wrong. My baby wasn't at the foot of my bed. He was up on another floor all alone. My anxiety level was through the roof and I had to go see him. 

I called my nurse and she happily took me up in a wheel chair. She wheeled me into his room, told me to give her a call when I needed to go back, and left me. 

I just sat there sobbing.

I have never felt like that before and I don't even know how to describe it. Seeing my baby hooked up to all those cords...watching a monitor beep with all his vital information...knowing there was literally nothing I could do to help him. Fuck it was awful. 

He was supposed to be waking me up to feed him. I was supposed to be annoyed with Thane for sleeping through his cries while I try to get up out of bed without screaming. I was supposed to be in that hospital bed snuggling him with nurses coming in to yell at me for falling asleep while holding him. 

Instead, he was in a little bed on a pillow with an IV in, getting his foot pricked every few hours and I was just staring at him. 

The nurse finally let me hold him and I just sat there with him on my chest telling him how sorry I was. It was my fault he was in there. My body once again couldn't get my baby to full term and now he was in here with a needle in him. Mom guilt to a whole new level. 

I know now that we are lucky. We were in there for reasons they knew and understood how to fix. Camden was also having problems regulating his body temperature so we also had to keep an eye on that the entire stay also but up there he was nice and cozy in his little bed. I know now that our little stay in the NICU is nothing compared to what the other families who were up there were going through. Their babies were going through much more serious issues than temperature regulation and low blood sugar but try telling me that then. 

I couldn't stop crying. I don't know if I have ever cried that much. Add a stressful situation to the state of my hormones and watch out. Constant tears. Constant anxiety. I just wanted to get my baby off that floor and back in our room as soon as we could.