When Motherhood Doesn't Go According to Plan: Life with a Hospitalized Baby (Part 2 of 3)

Looking back, it seems like the next few months flew by, but I know that wasn't how it felt at the time. Olivia continued to breathe on her own and was able to get more and more milk through her feeding tube. Her heart was still weak, but it was getting stronger every day. She was gaining weight and the nurses and doctors were very impressed with her progress! Meanwhile, my husband and I got into a routine. I would go to the hospital for a few hours during the day while he was at work. Then, we would go back together after dinner. I was pumping every 2-3 hours and was making enough milk so that she never had to get formula. By the time she was 1 month old, she had gained almost a pound and 2 inches in length. A few days later, she was moved from the high risk room to the intermediate room! It seemed like everyday we had happy news to share, so we started a blog, where we could post pictures and keep our family and friends informed about her status. It was really helpful to be able to share even the smallest developments.

As time went by, we got to do more and more to care for Olivia. At first we were only able to change her diaper. Then, when she was strong enough to eat from a bottle or from my breast, we were able to feed her. Pretty soon, we were doing all of her care while we were there and the nurses were just watching!

After 8 weeks, my maternity leave was ending and I had to make what seemed like an impossible decision. We were still unsure about when Olivia would be coming home, so I had to choose to either take the rest of my vacation time or to go back to work and save my time off so that I could be with her when she came home. We ultimately decided that I should go back to work while she was still in the hospital. Thankfully, I was able to work from home and from the hospital for most of the following weeks.

Around the same time that I went back to work, we realized that she was rapidly achieving the milestones necessary for her to come home. Each hospital has a list of requirements that must be met before premature infants can be released, and she only had 2 left. She needed to get better at eating from her bottle and she needed to go 7 days without any drops in her heart rate. Time started to slow down. We got the house all ready, had her car seat installed and inspected at the police station, and attended the CPR and infant care classes offered at the hospital. Even though there was so much to do, it felt like we spent most of our time waiting.

All the waiting was worth it!
Just 74 days after she was born, (and 3 weeks before my actual due date) Olivia was ready to come home! Despite her rough start, she was a happy, healthy baby, but we still had to take a lot of precautions. She was still smaller than most newborns, weighing about 5 1/2 pounds. At first, she had doctors' appointments every few weeks and we were instructed to keep her home as much as possible. We had to be very careful about who came over to visit and make sure that she wasn't exposed to any illnesses that her tiny body couldn't handle. All of this seemed so simple compared to having to leave her every night. We were prepared to do whatever it took to have her home with us!

Once we got home, however, reality sunk in. I felt like someone needed to be watching her 24 hours per day. We didn't have the monitors to let us know if she needed us anymore. I constantly worried that she wasn't breathing or that her heart rate would drop and we wouldn't know. Within just a few hours of her homecoming, I was sure that she needed to go back to the hospital. This feeling went away over the next few days as we got used to our new routine. No more driving back and forth to the hospital. No more eating in the car or the hospital cafeteria. No more nurses dictating when she got to eat or when we were allowed to hold her. She finally came home to live happily ever after!

Fast-forward 13 months...to a much better place
Olivia is a normal, silly toddler. She is growing like a weed. She walks. She talks. She does everything a normal toddler does. When people find out that she was born so early, they are shocked. She is extremely social and makes friends everywhere we go. She loves to read books, listen to music, and play ball. If anyone would have told me a year ago that this is what our life would be like now (which I am sure someone probably did) I wouldn't have believed them. Olivia is living proof that miracles do happen. Along the way, so many things could have gone differently, according to my plan, but if they had, we wouldn't be where we are today. I know that sounds cheesy, which isn't usually my style, but it is true. "Operation Baby Banuelos" may have hit some snags along the way, but we have the beautiful, sweet, smart baby girl that we always dreamed of.

Next time: Part 3 - Tips for coping with your premature baby's hospitalization.

When Motherhood Doesn't Go According to Plan (Part 1 of 3)

Operation Baby Banuelos
I am a planner. I plan out the next day at night before I go to bed. I plan out the week's meals on Sundays. I even made a pregnancy plan. I sketched out exactly what becoming a mother would be like. Here is how "Operation Baby Banuelos" worked in my mind:

1. Decide to have a baby
2. After only 1 month of "trying," see 2 blue lines!
3. Look and feel great for 9 months
4. Have an easy, fast labor at 40 weeks
5. Bring beautiful, healthy baby home and live happily ever after!

I soon discovered that being a parent rarely goes according to plan. Here is what "Operation Baby Banuelos" taught me:

1. Deciding to get pregnant is the easiest part!
2. Getting pregnant right away isn't always as easy
3. Being pregnant isn't always fun
4. You can't plan when labor will start
5. Newborns don't always get to come home right away

Looking back, I realize I was more than a little idealistic. But for me, being a mother was something I had always dreamed about. Sure, I knew about morning sickness, premature labor, and the increasing prevalence of infertility. I was pursuing a Master's Degree in Maternal and Child Nutrition, so I knew more than most people about pregnancy and all of the possible risks. I just never considered that complications would be part of my story. They weren't part of my plan.

In this post, I will share my experience with early labor and the birth of my daughter. Next time I will describe what it was like leaving the hospital without my baby. Finally, in Part 3, I will share tips for coping and making the best of a difficult situation.

Briefly: Steps 1-4 of my story
For us, step 1, deciding to have a baby, was the easiest part. But it took 2 years to get to step 2. Once I finally got pregnant, I was determined to do everything right. I stopped moving heavy boxes; I left the house when my husband was painting; I bought more fruits and vegetables; I planned (there is that word again!) to go for walks in the evenings. Unfortunately, following a plan is hard when you can't even keep water down. I was so sick that I lost 10 pounds during the first 3 months of my pregnancy and I struggled to get to work each day. Just as I thought step 3 was a lost cause, I started to feel better. I had more energy, could eat real food, and I started to enjoy being pregnant. I began to feel my baby move and we found out we were having a girl!

Unfortunately, step 4 came much earlier than we expected. At 24 weeks, I noticed a little spotting and even though my doctor assured me that it was nothing to worry about, I made an appointment. What started out as a quick check-up over my lunch hour, turned into immediate admission into the hospital. At first, everything happened so quickly that there wasn't much explanation about what was going on. All we knew was that I was already dilated to 3 centimeters and we had to stop the labor. I was taken to a hospital equipped for high risk pregnancies and things improved. I wasn't having contractions, the labor didn't seem to be progressing, and I came to terms with the fact that the best thing for my baby was for me to stay in the hospital for as long as possible. But, on my 6th day in the hospital, my baby flipped over and started kicking downward. We couldn't wait any longer. Olivia was born 15 weeks early, at 25 weeks gestation. She weighed only 1 pound 15 ounces and was 13 inches long.

Step 5: Bring beautiful, healthy baby home and live happily ever after
Needless to say, with step 4 going so wrong, step 5 was thrown out the window. We knew that babies born so early faced an uphill battle and that our daughter would struggle just to survive. According to the March of Dimes, 1% of babies in the United States are born before 28 weeks and of those born at 26 weeks, 80% survive. Olivia was born at a time when research shows that things could go either way.

There are 2 things I remember clearly about those first few days. First, I remember how excited I was to take a shower! It had been 8 days since I was allowed to shower and it felt so good! The other thing, even better than the shower, was the first time I was able to take some of my breast milk to the NICU! I started pumping just a few hours after getting back from the recovery room because I knew how important my milk would be to Olivia. Since she was too small and weak to nurse, I needed to pump frequently to stimulate my the milk to come in. By day 3, the doctors had decided to start feeding her through an OG-tube, which is a tiny tube that went into her mouth and down to her stomach. I remember the first time I got any milk out, I had less than 1 milliliter of colostrum to take to her, but I was so excited. I carried it over to the NICU in a tiny syringe. It was the first time I felt like I could do something to care for my baby, and that was the best feeling I had had in days!

Just a few days after Olivia was born, it was time for me to be discharged from the hospital. I had mixed emotions about going home. On the one hand, I was glad to be leaving the hospital. I had been in bed for over a week, so the idea of being able to go outside (or even to the kitchen to get something for myself) was thrilling. On the other hand, I knew that I would be leaving my baby in the hospital and home was 30 miles away. Because I had a C-section, I was not allowed to drive for a few weeks after the surgery. My friends and family were very supportive and worked out a system to make sure I always had someone to take me back and forth. But, even though all of their support was appreciated, they couldn't make me feel any less helpless.

Next time I will continue the story about Olivia's time in the hospital and what it was like when we were finally able to bring her home.