I had been in Columbus all week and Crave drove up that Friday afternoon, mom stayed with the girls. He met us at the NICU and we spent all evening in Center Pod with Little Man. Usually they have you leave for shift change for an hour but our nurse knew Crave was just arriving after being gone five days and so she let him stay. She did her hourly checks on our son but she didn't hover or intrude on us. She gave us privacy, so hard to find in the NICU. She didn't disturb us and when she did have to do Little Man's care, she didn't bother us with idle chit chat. She respected our time and our moments with our baby. I had held Little Man when Crave first arrived and the rule was that he could only be held for fifteen minutes once a day at that time, the standard protocol his doctors had decided upon. But that night Takara learned that Crave had not held his son yet and so she made some phone calls to the docs and they agreed that Little Man could be taken out of the incubator once again if he could keep up his oxygen levels and temps. And so I watched my husband, my best friend, hold our son for the first time. He was so very tiny in his daddy's big hand. The tears easily came because I was just so overcome with pride and honor. Crave is the most amazing father and he has always been moved to tears in the first moments of meeting our children, and with Little Man it took my breath away. All we had been through and those scary moments of his birth and the chaos of right after when he was whisked away to be hooked up to a ventilator and all that. Crave went through that fear and chaos alone as he waited for word on me still unstable in surgery. I am so sad that he had to have his heart torn like that, that there wasn't peace when our son was born but emergency actions and no time for the normal bonding. And so this night last year was a beautiful emotional night of bonding. I remember looking in his eyes as he held our son and talked to him and just thanking God that we were both here and both getting to hold our son. That night we each held Little Man for almost a half hour. The doctors came down and talked to us about how he would soon move to the step down nursery and would be weaned off the extra breathing help. He would soon become just a feeder/grower preemie, what they label babies who don't have any health concerns but just gaining weight. We were so hopeful and we stayed very late that night in the NICU.
Takara let us participate fully in his care, which wasn't the case a lot of the time in the Center Pod. The nurses could be territorial and it was a strange place to be in as a mother. The care I am talking about besides medicines and checking his vitals and tube placements is diaper changes and moistening his mouth where the tubes and tape are, things like that. Now I would love for someone to come change his poopy, yucky diapers, back then it was the only thing I could do. But you would have to let the nurse know you wanted to do it. I would leave notes everywhere, please let me change his diaper, please let me wipe his mouth, wipe his eyelids, let me change his tape or his placement. Please please let me do something! Most of Caleb's nurses, especially those at OSU, were wonderful but there were a few who would rather just do it themselves. It was either more convenient, quicker, or sometimes they were just territorial and that was a hard thing to deal with. I hated having to be buzzed in by a security guard and then having to ask his nurse if I could come back to see my son everytime I wanted to see him. Often I would be there all day but not leave to pee, TMI, I know, but I just didn't want to have to go through the security process over. Not because I didn't appreciate the security features it was just jarring to have to go through all that to see your baby. I hated having to call and talk to a stranger to get updates on my son the times I couldn't be with him. I would call and the nurse would either be wonderful or infuriating. Those that gave me his vitals and conditions right away, I loved. Those that said silly things about how cute he was I wanted to verbally abuse. Harsh, I know, what mother doesn't want to hear her baby is cute? The mother who would rather know how many times her son stopped breathing today and if he needed any blood transfusions. So that was my constant battle with nurses, mostly in my own head and heart. The admittance that someone else was taking care of my son when I couldn't, that someone else knew more about him than I did. Also, the constant need to get permission to interact with my son, to be admitted to his pod, to touch him, turn his lights on or off, hold him, change his diaper,it was infuriating and depressing.I should not have to ask permission to see my son! Sometimes when I was finally able to hold Little Man the nurse would ask that I wait until after lunch or whatever and since I needed help with disconnecting his tubes and stuff I was dependant on them. But I learned how to effectively communicate and become an advocate, effectively communicate, what a grown up thing!
I remember a few other nurses from our stay there; some for good reasons, some for their bad attitude, but none stand out as much as Takara. Partly because of the momentous night she was part of, that first beautiful sight of my husband holding his son. Partly because she was striking, beautiful, compassionate and had an unusual name just like my Senny. And partly because the next day our worlds crashed and she was a calming force of information for me.
You see the next morning, Sept. 27 was Crave's birthday. Since we had such a great night with Little Man and it was Crave's birthday we decided to go out to breakfast and visit with our son after the Buckeye game day traffic died down a little. We wanted Little Man to have time to rest because we had stimulated him a lot with our visit the night before and he was still so sensitive to lights, sounds, movement and touch. But early that morning we got a phone call from the transport team from Children's requesting permission to transport our now unstable son to their hospital immediately for a consult with surgeons. We were urged to come quickly to the hospital because our baby was gravely ill. He had internal bleeding they could not pinpoint and other serious issues. We tried to hurry there but traffic was bad. When we arrived we still hadn't received a thorough explanation of what was wrong or what the next step would be. Little Man also had not arrived and wouldn't arrive for another hour but all they would tell us was that he wasn't stable enough to transport. We tried to get info from the new hospital, the nurse's station, the attending at OSU, the resident on call. No one could tell us anything new. So I went out on the green lawn and sat on the ground and prayed and cried. I wanted answers, it was a weekend, everyone had their head in their asses, people were watching the buckeyes in the on call room, I was so frustrated. Then I thought to call the direct nurse line to Center pod at OSU and I asked if Takara was still on. Her shift was over at 7 am but she had stayed hours after, until our son was in the ambulance en route. She told me they had just put him in the ambulance and she told me everything she knew. She told me they had to bag him before they left, that he had needed a platelet transfusion and that they believed his liver was now the problem and she was so detailed and kind. We knew more after my five minute conversation with her than we had all morning.
Little Man was very sick when we were finally reunited. He stopped breathing and turned blue right in front of us. I will never forget it. I used to be an EMT, I don't panic in life or death situations. I have done CPR. But when he stopped breathing I panicked, my world stopped and all I could do was scream for help and then berate them for leaving him alone not hooked up to monitors when he was so sick. And that stared my introduction to the NICU staff at Children's. It didn't get much better but that is ok. We are home now, I can say it is ok now. Little Man is doing quite well. It is hard to believe it has been a year, this week it has all felt very fresh again. I guess some moments in life just stick with you.
But I have also realized that some people stick with you too. And so I am trying to be more mindful of my behaviors and attitudes and words. You never know the impact you are making on someone else. You also don't always know what someone else is walking through at any given moment. We aren't alone in this world, our actions can hinder or help others. Tonight I am thankful for Takara. I am also thankful for all of the staff who took care of my son when I couldn't, those who saved his life, guarded his life, impacted my life and the lives of my family. I am trying to focus on the image of Crave holding his son for the first time and the sights of him now playing with Little Man and the awesome interaction of father and son. They are definately making up for lost bonding time. I am not sure I will ever get the images out of my head of my baby so sick but I am thankful that I now have many more images I can pull out of my memory bank. Those horrible, scary, jarring moments in the NICU are a part of our family's story but I am glad we are moving on. I am trying to hold on to the lessons I learned in the NICU and letting go everything else that holds me back or shatters my peace.
I hope tomorrow we can celebrate Jason's birthday as a family living in hope and IN THE NOW. Because really, Crave isn't getting any younger is he? ha I love you Ja.
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