Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Bradley is in the Hospital: Part 1

Bradley was doing good after his birth. He was eating. He had gotten my milk to come in.
But I felt a strange nagging feeling that something was not right with him.

I had a hard time when anyone would ask me about his weight or how he was doing.
My husband, my Mom, my midwife, and my pediatrician kept reassuring me
that everything looked fine with him, he was just a small baby.

I was reassured by the fact that he was eating really good.
On Wednesday August 3, he ate every hour,
which is typical for a baby that is trying to get more milk.

The next day he slowed to every three hours and had a very long nap in the afternoon.

That night he was up all night, crying, and very unhappy.

The next day he ate less.
The next night the same as before.

 Saturday night, after not sleeping much,
 Tom took Bradley downstairs and tried to force him
 to take a bottle with formula (which he was not a fan of) while I slept.


At 4am Tom brought Bradley back to me,
 telling me he hadn't slept much or eaten much for him either.
 Tom said we should probably take him to the Doctor in the morning.


Bradley cried until 6am.


 I called my Mom and cried to her, I told her something was not right with
Bradley and he had not eaten a full feeding since 6pm before we went to bed.

As I was on the phone with her he finally took the bottle and drank 2oz.

Mom and I talked about it and I realized he had eaten only two real feedings in 24 hours.

I had been trying to drip breast milk or formula into his mouth and he would not suck.

I also realized he hadn't slept in 36 hours. I decided he did need to go to the Doctor.

My doctor is open on Sundays so I called and got him in at 9am.

When we got to the Doctor, they weighed him and he'd lost an ounce.
The Doctor came and looked at him and said he needed to go to the
hospital if he wouldn't suck and he had lost weight.
Dr. Levin said Bradley didn't have any reserves to not be eating.
This was the last picture I took of Bradley at home.
This is a picture I took with my cell phone in the Emergency room.
They got one IV in him. Took blood, did a spinal tap, and took some urine through a catheter.
They said he was showing signs of infection because of his low temps.


He was admitted for failure to thrive and hypothermia.
They admitted him to the Pediatric ICU, because we had come from outside the hospital
and he couldn't take outside infections to the NICU.
We got up to the room, meet the nurse and talked with the
 Doctors who all could not believe my story about being
 44 weeks pregnant and having a 4lb 8oz baby.

The nurse said they would work on stabilizing him
and he'd probably go to the pediatrics floor in a few days to fatten him up.
They hydrated him with an IV and put some reflux medicine in his tummy and before I left he took a bottle from the nurse. I was so happy to see him eat!
The nurse encouraged us to go home and get some rest.
 I was EXHAUSTED.
We left and came home and slept 12 hours.
IT WAS WONDERFUL!

We decided to go check on our other kids who were with Grandma.
They were doing fine and Grandma said she could keep them so we could go see Bradley.
 As we drove to the hospital, I called to check on him.
The nurse said Bradley had had a rough night and had stopped breathing.
They had put him in an incubator to maintain his temps better.

They also needed us to sign a consent to try to get an
PICC line into him to get some blood out of him for testing.
I told her we'd be right there!
When we got there he looked like this.
I put my camera in the door of the incubator to get this shot of his face.
They tried for the next 24 hours to get a PICC or a CICC line into him to get blood.
They never could.
He was showing signs of infections.
And his levels were all very out of balance.

They were having to intibated him because his breathing was so erratic.
We thought he was going to die and the nurses and doctors did too.
It was one of the scariest things I had EVER been through.
The doctors requested we come back to the hospital to sign for a surgically inserted access line.
They told us this would be our last chance to get access into this baby
 and that after that they could do no more for him.
His breathing tube had come out and the nurse said I could come and hold him ONE LAST TIME....

I realized I hadn't ever take a picture holding him and I wanted one.
The nurse took this picture of me holding him and I could not stop crying for the pictures.

The pediatric surgeon came in and went over the risks of his surgery.
The surgeon said that this was his last chance to get any help from them and that
our baby would die if he couldn't get this line in.
He also said that our baby had a VERY HIGH chance of bleeding to death because he wasn't clotting very well and that we should know that there may be a chance he could die from bleeding to death.

Tom and I could not stop crying.
I felt like he was going to die.


We sang to him and rubbed his little hands and feet and told him we loved him.
I hugged Tom and told Tom that he would be ours forever and it didn't matter if he died.
Then they took him.
And it was so quiet. And all I could do was go pump.

Tom and I went into the pumping room and talked about a funeral, and when we would do it.
I talked about burying him in his blessing outfit.
And then we just cried. It was the saddest I HAVE EVER FELT!
After I was done we went back to Bradley's room.
We were still crying and talking.
AND THEN THE NURSE SHOUTED
"THEY GOT THE LINE!"

They got the line? Did we hear that right?
I asked her if I'd heard her right, she assured me he was fine and
he was going to return from surgery in a moment.
And then he was back.
Out of it still, but back and still ALIVE!
NOW HE COULD HAVE A BLOOD TRANSFUSION AND GET BLOOD OUT FOR TESTING.
They finally got blood out of him on Wednesday, 4 days after we were admitted.
It had been a very long 4 days.


That night when we got home,
I was going through some dirty laundry and
I found a little hat of Bradley's in my dirty clothes, that he had worn.
I sat and smelled it for a while.
That familar scent of my baby.
And cried.
I put the hat in a special place and told Tom he could never-ever wash it.