The Rest

Because I am home now, and see that Aleida is rapidly returning to her old self, even better, I can finally write about the rest of the hospital stay. Now that I can actually see and feel things getting back to "normal," I can write about how far away normalcy seemed less than a week ago.

After surgery, the big goal was extubation- removal of the breathing tube in Aleida's nose. As mentioned in a previous entry, extubation got delayed because AJ had a delayed (but pretty normal) inflammatory response. She was puffy and distended. Even her eyelids were swollen, so she couldn't open her eyes all the way, and when she did, she did not look like my baby.

Seeing her with the tube in was heart-breaking- especially when she was puffy. I could touch her and talk to her, but I could not hold her or feed her. For the almost 3 days the tube was in, she received only IV sugar water. As her primary source of nutrition, I was totally stressed out by the lack of calories. It may be routine, but it didn't feel right. Maybe this stems from all the focus we put on weight gain in the first months of life.

The tube did finally come out, and I thought, "It will all get better from here." She was able to cry once the tube was out, a sound that actually relieved me. She was hoarse and weak, but she had a voice again.

Holding her was nice, a much needed physical connection, but ultimately unsatisfying. She still had chest tubes, IVs and wires coming out of her little body, so just picking her up and moving her 2 feet to the chair beside her hospital crib was a 3-person job. She felt extremely fragile with all those connections, not to mention the incision.

This is what I wish I'd been prepared for: extubation means no more sedation. No more sedation means more awareness. More awareness equals more pain. Getting the tube out was certainly a step in the right direction, but a stage of the process for which I was unprepared. The night after her extubation may go down as the longest and most difficult night of my life. The nurses worked hard to manage Aleida's pain, but she was still uncomfortable all night. She would sleep for maybe an hour at a time, then wake up crying. Nurses would give medication if they could. Sometimes they would have to wait to keep her levels within limits. I would wake up and come to her from my little ICU bed by the window, and the nurse would place her in my arms in the chair next to her crib. She would cry and squirm, but ultimately settle down. I held her until I became so deliriously tired that I was afraid of falling asleep and dropping her. Then, I'd call the nurse and she'd help me place her back in the crib and the whole cycle would start over again.

I'd been able to start feeding her again, but it took awhile for her digestive system to kick back on, so though probably ravenous, she was bloated and distended and had trouble latching. I was disappointed that holding her was not the solace I had planned on. I was emotionally worn down from seeing my 3-month-old daughter in pain. I was physically exhausted from sleeping in the ICU for 3 days- which really means not sleeping much at all. In other words, I was nearing a breakdown.

But in the end it was not about me at all. It was about the innocent, ignorant little creature lying in that hospital crib, who clearly did not understand what was going on. Everyone kept telling me, "She's doing great. She looks great. Her numbers are good. She's progressing as we expected." I understand that this is what doctors and nurses have to look for. I really do. But for me, her mother, who sees the distended belly, the bruises from her IVs, and her furrowed brow, numbers mean jackshit. The furrowed brow, especially, broke my heart. She never furrowed her brow before the surgery. Now, every time she was awake, and even sometimes asleep, her little brow would be furrowed in discomfort. She felt so far away from the baby I'd brought into the hospital, that I became convinced that she had been forever changed, and that my smiley, shiny-eyed wonder was gone forever.