With the cluster feeding over, Ellie was back to waking every three hours. After I fed and settled her at 1am and I was laying in bed trying to go back to sleep I was hit with a sudden wave of panic.
This was where it had all began. This was where we had almost lost her. Just down the hall was the room where they'd told us she needed to come out, back in the time before life flipped upside. And just a few more doors up from there was where I lay helplessly when they took her away.
I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating and crying and having the biggest panic attack of my life. I just wanted to get out of there. I didn't want to spend another second in that hospital. I was completely freaking out and every time I closed my eyes to tried and get it together I had images of her pale, lifeless body laying on that resus table flashing through my head.
It lasted almost two hours, but at the time it felt like a lifetime. I shuffled myself over to the shower and stood under the hot water for another 20 minutes crying. By the time I was dressed and feeling better Ellie was starting to stir for her next feed.
While I was preparing her bottle in the milk room one of the nurses came in and asked how we were doing. I told her how well Ellie was feeding, and that the doctor the day before had said all she needed to do was gain a little bit more weight and we could take her home. She said that didn't sound right, Ellie had only lost 40 grams and its normal for babies to lose up to 10 percent of their birth weight.
I tried not to, but I was a bit excited to hear that. I wondered if maybe that meant we could go home that day, or at the latest by Monday. In an effort not to get my hopes up though I didn't say anything to Drew and just focused on getting on with the job at hand.
Drew and Sophie came in around 8.30am. Sophie had had a rough night and woke up vomitting, so Drew was just as tired as I was. Soph brought some toys with her so she just ignored Ellie and played nicely on the floor.
At 10am a nurse came in and asked if we'd like to go home. We were estatic! Ellie needed to be checked by the paediatrician on duty, but it seemed that as she was drinking solely from her bottle and there had been no problems over night she should be fine to go.
While we were waiting for the paediatrician the audiologist dropped in to do her newborn hearing screen. Ellie was awake and refusing to go to sleep though, and the results kept coming up as failed. She tried a couple of times but said that with Ellie moving around it was too hard and affecting the results, so we'd have to have the test done again in the outpaitents clinic instead.
It was lunchtime when the paediatrician finally showed up and gave us the all clear. He said she would need to have regular blood tests to monitor her haemaglobin levels and would be seen in the paediatric outpaitent clinic at the hospital.
12 days after she was born, we loaded Ellie in to the car and took her home. The first part, the scariest part, of her journey was finally over. I was so excited to get her home and start getting in to a routine.
Once we were home we were bombarded with visitors, which I actually really loved. I love my family, and one of the sadest parts of Ellie's birth was not having everyone there to share it with. Plus, it took my mind off of that little panic attack.
I had five days left before Drew went back to work, and I had to start working out how I would manage alone of a night with both girls. Bathtime that first night was a disaster, but also an eyeopener that things were going to be different now. But I was just happy to have the chance, afterall, things almost turned out quite different, and I'd rather be run off my feet as a mother of two than the alternative anyday.
No comments:
Post a Comment