We had such a big day Wednesday that by the time aunts and uncles (related and otherwise) visited and everything wound down, kiddo, Kevin and I were pretty worn out. Never the less, as they say, we persisted. Ember worked all day on being totally adorable and squeaking a lot, making progress on nursing each time we tried. But by 2 am, she was worn out, had given up on trying to latch and I was starting to lose my entire mind. As I watched the clock, thinking to myself “it’s about to be 24 hours since I slept,” I started to fall into tiny pieces. Overcome with amazement at this perfect tiny human that I held in my arms and frustration with not seeming to be able to feed her enough, I turned into a huge puddle of tired emotional tears. 

The night nurse suggested I take a break for a couple of hours and try to get some sleep, so I reluctantly handed her over to Kevin for a few hours and got some sleep. 

By 4:30, I was back awake and ready to have her back, so she and I watched morning television til the morning parade of doctors and nurses came through. And boy did they!
I felt so much better after a few hours of sleep but I was still a big weepy puddle of tears most of the morning. The nurses checked her blood sugar levels by pricking her tiny foot and I just fell to pieces. I’ve always heard of moms being so upset watching their kids get shots and I’ve thought “oh, it’s not that bad.” Wrong – I was wrong and I’m so sorry. Watching her cry out was agony and I thought I would just lose it entirely. Kevin, who I had very recently made an effort to avoid crying in front of at his apartment, watched as I bawled and did all that he could, but I’m sure, felt very unhelpful.

The nurses has some concerns about her blood sugar levels, which made sense to me since she’d gotten cranky about eating but was still going through diapers like there was no tomorrow, so we weren’t super worried. As the day went on, however, there were more foot sticks and less nursing and people got more and more worried. Katrina showed up with her little boy, helped me to get up and shower, and was an all around hero while Kevin ran home to get some ACTUAL sleep and gear up for the evening. 

The pediatrician came by yesterday and said she looked good, checking her hips out and not finding any issue even though she’d been breech and often it’s a problem. 

The later it got in the day, the more worried people were getting about her blood sugar levels. She’d weighed in this morning at 5lb 12oz, and seemed uninterested in eating much.  Throughout the night, I’d had at least ten different pairs of hands trying to help me nurse her without too much progress. It was becoming a pretty disheartening situation. They gave her some formula a few times trying to get her levels up. More feeding, more latching issues, more foot pricking.

The audiologist came by and said her hearing was great,  so that was good news. The hospital photographer also came by and took some photos (shared in another post) and of course she was totally adorable.

They had trouble doing yet ANOTHER blood draw and I was back to a melting puddle of tears when they decided to take her up to the NICU to do some tests. By 3:00 the NICU Nurse came to talk to us. They were admitting her to do a CBC and another test because she wasn’t responding to her feedings and they were worried about her glucose levels.

Well. That was it for me. After two-ish hours of sleep, I became a complete disaster. In my logical brain, I knew that they were doing exactly what they should and that I was so lucky they got it early to figure out what was going on, but I just fell to pieces. 

My mom came back to the hospital, I dissolved, and I sent her up to the NICU as a scout because there was no possible way I could go up there at the moment to see her. Right about that time, the NICU Nurse came to see us in the room. There was good news – Ember had immediately responded to the glucose IV and was, as she put it, frisky and screaming angrily. This was a great sign. Although one of her blood tests came back showing some inflammation, they hadn’t found any infection through the CBC and she felt really good about her response to the IV. 

Early babies have trouble. Tiny early babies have more trouble. They don’t have the fat stores to help them when they first get here. Her oxygen levels were great and she was doing well. The NICU Nurse felt like the most likely situation would be that she’d continue to improve and probably be back with us tomorrow. In the meantime, I had decided that some medicine might be of use to get me through the different levels of general craziness the day had caused, and between that and the good news, I was almost feeling like a real person again.

We went up to the NICU after we got a similar report back from my mom (good news, Ember looked great) and sat with her for a while.

We decided that it might be of SOME help if we actually tried to sleep tonight, so we both went back down to the room and really slept (me for the first time) for hours.

We will anxiously await news of her second CBC in the morning to rule any infection or inflammation out and see how she’s done overnight with her blood sugar. In the meantime, we’re working on getting some rest so we can be in good shape to have her back in our room.

Thanks to everyone who has reached out over the past day or two with excitement, concern and support. We’re so lucky to have each of you and this tiny perfect person.