A day in the life...

Of a NICU mom. Just so I never forget nor take things for granted.

6:00am : Roll out of bed and start my morning off with pumping and measuring out milk to take to the NICU

6:30am: Pull my hair in a messy ponytail as I rush around trying to get dressed. ready, and eat something for breakfast.

6:55am: Made it to the hospital in record time! It helps that S dropped me off so I wouldn't have to find a place to park. Head up the Main Entrance Elevator to the 4th floor. What is it about the 4th floor??

7:38am- Start my scrub in process. McKay-Dee is SERIOUS about their scrubbing in and the front desk watches you to make sure you fully scrub for 3 minutes. They provide one-time-use sponges with scrubbers on the others side along with a nail pick. I am SO glad they are willing to give us these scrubbers so that I can feel confident my hands (and everyone elses) are CLEAN. I will never forget the first time I scrubbed my hands for 3 minutes straight watching the clock tick down the seconds until I could see my baby. Three Minutes is a LONG time to scrub your hands while you are trying to maintain modesty wearing a hospital gown after having a baby :)

7:41am: Check in at the NICU front desk then squirt myself 3 squirts of hand sanitizer to rub from my elbows to my cuticules. Then walk down the LONGEST hallway in the world ;) Put on more hand sanitizer after opening the door and look up at Max's monitor as I walk to his bedspace. Then I uncover him and pick him up just because I CAN do that now.

7:44am: Max and I snuggle and visit while I wait for either his nurse or RT come give me the daily update.

8:15am: The RT comes to tell me the GREAT NEWS that Max at 80mL (about 2.5 ounces) by mouth at 5:00am. Whoa Buddy! That's the most he has ever eaten in one sitting before. She continues to update me on his vitals and blood levels, which are all great. They've added eyedrops to his cares twice a day to help with his tearducts. He is on Level 2 for going home, which is halfway there, and assures me that the 'lightswitch' didn't turn off while I was away.

8:25am: Max starts acting like he is hungry so the nurse makes me a bottle to give to him. I change his diaper, take his temperature, switch his SAT probe, and measure his belly while the bottle is warming up. Hungry was an understatment as he drank 50mL in no time. Thankfully, he didn't reflux while I was burping him and he kept all 50 mL down.

9:00am: Max and I sit and rock in the rocking chair until he falls asleep...okay maybe I rocked him for much longer than it took him to fall asleep.

9:45am: Put Max back in his bed and check myself out of the NICU.

9:52am: Call S and give him the updates of the day. S tells me he won't be stopping by at lunch time, but will meet me in the NICU when he gets off work.

10:10am: Fill out the NICU calendar for Max in the waiting room, they are testing to see if he will wake up on his own if he is hungry which is the next step in his eating Level. They monitor him closely, but do not touch him or anything else that could wake him.

11:00am: He did it! He woke himself up when he was hungry, the RT tells me. I scrub-in and check back into the NICU so that I can give him another bottle!

11:15am: He is all ready to give his bottle again! He eats 65 mL this time and burps almost right away. I live for days like this! We snuggle down again and the RT brings me a glass of ice water. McKay-Dee rocks.

12:30pm: Max and I rock in the rocking chair and I chat with the RT about his progress. She lets me know that if he continues to eat everything by mouth he might be going home sooner than I think. MUCH SOONER. He has graduated to Level 3 now already and they will continue to feed him as much as he wants whenever he wants to eat.  He has eaten 9 of his last 11 feedings from a bottle.

2:30pm SHIFT CHANGE for the the NICU meaning that it is closed to visitors. All visitors...and yes,  mom's count as visitors. I head down to the cafeteria to eat a late lunch and keep myself busy until shift change is over.

4:00pm : Max has officially gone 24 hours since he took a feeding through his tube. As long as he goes the rest of the day without needing it they will take it out. I watch him sleep so that I don't wake him, since they are wanting him to wake on his own again. I can hardly stand not being able to pick him up and hold him anytime I want, I'm not sure how I made it through the months of sitting by his bedside holding his hand through the incubator door. Time passes quickly and painfully slowly at the same time.

4:45pm: Daddy is here! Max wakes up when he hears his voice and starts sucking on his fingers. The nurses get a bottle ready for him and S gives Max feeding number 11 of 13. Dr. Sheffield comes in while Max is eating and lets us know tomorrow they are going to check his eyes. If he is fully vascularized then they are going to switch him to 'wall air'.....which means he could go home on Monday "MAYBE" he tells me several times. He asks us if we have everything set up to bring him home and if we have our carseat installed ...uh NO! OMG I didn't think he was going to be home until July. He asks us to please  bring our carseat tomorrow for the "Carseat test"

5:30pm...S and I both look at each other and I start to panic a bit, because we haven't even taken the carseat out of the box, none of his clothes are washed, and we haven't been grocery shopping in forever (mostly because I eat so many meals in the cafeteria or in the car...gee why haven't I lost any weight? ha!) We decide not to tell anyone because that big fat MAYBE is still heavy in my mind.

5:40pm Even though I usually stay until 9pm, I realize how much we have to get done to bring Max home and decide we better go.

6:38pm I start pulling the carseat out of the box at home

6:55pm We hit the Wendy's drive-throu before heading to Walmart for Clorox wipes, spray bottles, dish soap, and various other  houshold supplies

11:00pm We finally crash into bed after rearanging our room to get the basinett arranged and cloroxing/lysol spraying almost everything.

Whew!