Dingo Bait

Adelyn Day 1

 So, it has been quite an interesting ride.  Being a nurse has had quite a few drawbacks.  The biggest is finding out which nurses are better than others.  Some of our nurses have been absolutely wonderful.  Everything a nurse needs to be ... compassionate, caring, holistic in nursing care and even encouraging family bonding.  Unfortunately most of the nurses we have encountered haven't held these qualities.  Since we've had to be in the NICU, i would have guessed that most of the nurses would have these qualities since it's such an important time for family bonding.  Surprisingly we've met more resistance than encouragement.  For instance, i was playing soft soothing music

while i was holding my baby and the nurse was like are "you playing music?  you should turn that off."  Really?  Constant soothing music that drowns out the hum of the ac, the ringing of the phones and beeping of the montiors and iv pumps is disturbing to my baby?   Even picking up adelyn has met resistance.  The nurses have said we shouldn't pick up a sleeping baby and we have touch times here.  I totally understand if she was under some sort of care like being in an isolette or under bili lights or oxygen, but she doesn't need anything like that.  Then of course there is the whole entire time issue.  Since i work in the icu, i know it's very important to have time during shift report to not have family members in the unit.  But i'm also realistic in the fact that if family wants to be in so be it.  I can very easily close the door and give report.  I was very surprised when my wife was booted out of the nicu literally right after she just started breast feeding in order for the nurse to do her work.  Shouldn't we be encouraging breast feeding?  Then of course they wonder why Adelyn isn't eating enough.  Then to top it off the nurses gave her a pacifier which was totally against our wishes.  In fact, you need to sign a waiver in order for the nursing staff to give her a pacifier.  We never did and when we brought that to their attention the nurse said well we signed the medically necessary form and it was medically necessary in order to consul her.  How about actually calling down to the room to have the parents come and see if they can consul her?  It's not like we are down the elevator, across the courtyard, throught the woods and across the river.  The good news is after almost 24 hours of dealing with really crappy nurses we finally got one that was awesome.  The chairs in the nicu are definitely not comfortable and condusive to breast feeding mothers.  It took almost all day yesterday to get a more comfortable chair. Then of course our awesome nurse came in and said hey why don't you use the stool we have?  So we are thinking why is this the first time we've heard of such thing?  Then of course there was the entire discharge issue with my wife.  Two minutes after my wifes discharge instructions were written, we were told we have to be out of the room before the hour is up which was like 15 minutes from then.  Then to top it all off, the billing called the room expecting payment.  Seriously?  Not that i'm expecting special gold treatment from being an employee of this hospital system, but i would be expected to be treated a little better than this.

The good news is how Adelyn is doing.  Not that I expected anything different.  The reason we ended up in the NICU was because of the blood work we got back.  Her wbc count was slightly elevated.  Its funny they were using the words sepis when in fact she didnt any organ dysfunction one of the requirements for sepsis.  Since my wife was strep b positive it was more precautions than anything.  The hardest part of the entire process was when they came to take her to the NICU.  Being a nurse i can totally understand not having parents in the room to get an IV on your little one.  But at least update the parents.  It was the longest 3 hours of my life.  The worst of it was they giving small updates like we're getting her settled and we are still tring to get an IV to my wifes nurse who was no longer providing care for adelyn.  Why weren't they giving us the updates instead of the nurse?  Anyways,  they finally established the iv and started her on the antibiotics.  Since she was spitting up a little bit.  They placed an og tube and sucked out all the contents then removed it.  Totally agree with this considering how easy the labor was and she really didn't get all the contents expelled with lots of pushing.  Now the spitting up hasn't been an issue.  I'm sure the projective vomiting will be coming somtime in the next few months thought.  Nothing a change of clothes can't fix.  I just hope moby isn't in the way.

The doctors have been wonderful here.  Very down to earth and realistic. The blood cultures came back with the preliminary result of negative, a wonderful sign.  She's been eating great.  Voiding fine.  She still needs two more doses of antibiotics and we need the blood cultures to come back as officially negative fri afternoon, but from the looks of it we will going home fri night.  The neonatologist seems to think that her elevated wbc count was in response to the entire labor process and not any infective organism.

One thing that totally surpises me is the lack of other parents i've seen in the nicu.  I've seen a few parents here and there but noone really staying with their babies like we have.  Shocking to me but maybe not so much to the nurses in the NICU.  Moby on the other hand has been quite entertaining as well.  Considering he has been lacking in the attention department and has spent most of his time in the crate, we haven't felt a whole lot of compassion considering the first thing he does after peeing and pooping is lay down on the couch or bed.  A few days ago he even got a real treat when i went home to take a little nap and slept for like 2 hours.  He was sprawled across the entire bed.  His time in the crate will be short lived considering my wife will be pretty much a stay at home mom.  Well back to Adelyn with more to come...