Part 2

I was put in a room to recover and my visitors stayed with me. They were allowed to leave (and they did constantly) to go visit Kairi. I wasn’t really upset that I couldn’t go, due to the horrendous pain I was in… plus I was still paralyzed for a while. The night of my surgery, I was alone by seven pm. Everyone was tired and wanted to go home to sleep. It was then that the nurses changed shifts. To my dismay, I happened to get the nurse from hell! She seemed like something out of a Stephen King novel, even evil looking! At around 2 am, that night, she came into my room and was like, “Get up you’re going to the bathroom.” I was pretty horrified to see her battered face at that time of the night, not to mention that she had waken me from my peaceful sleep. After removing my catheter, she pulled me out of bed and we headed toward the bathroom. I laughed to myself as blood gushed out of me and onto the floor knowing that the witch would have to clean it up. The next day, I was only able to make one visit to see Kairi in a wheelchair, but fortunately, they had taken those LARGE tubes out of her nose and were replaced with smaller ones. She looked a little less gooey, but was still beautiful. I prayed all day that the witch nurse would not be back that night, but she was. As a matter of fact, for my whole stay, she was my night time nurse. It was so hard to get up and down, or maneuver at all. The day after my surgery was definitely the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. During the day the lactation specialist brought a breast pump into me, since I did plan on breast feeding. The best way for me to describe what that feels like, is someone trying to slowly cut your nipple off with a spoon. Every time I would sit in bed and it would be time to pump, I would sit there with my finger on the ON button dreading having to start. (It does eventually get better, it’s just starting is THE worse!) Not only that, but lactation encourages your uterus to start to shrink back to it’s normal size which is extremely painful. Again, probably feels like period pain times 10, plus with the C section and everything, just agonizing; all I can say is thank God for Percocet. One the third day, Kairi was doing better, so they moved her into a different NICU, a level down from the first one. In this one, she had her own room and her own nurse. This meant she was a step closer to being able to come home. The only scary part was she kept suffering from Brady’s, which is fairly common in preemies. A brady, or bradycardia was when her heart rate fell below what is normal. It usually was related to a desaturation where the oxygenation of the blood fell below normal also. Usually, a brady would follow an apnea spell, which was when she would forget to breathe for 15 seconds or more. As long as she was on the respirator, these spells weren't a great concern. But due to the fact that Kairi was improving, she wasn’t on the respirator anymore. When she would have a brady, you would hear all kinds of bells and alarms and someone would have to rush over to her and shake her a little to remind her to breathe. That was completely horrifying! That night, I was sent home. It was really hard to be away from her, knowing that she was on the other side of town, and I was at home. I planned on coming back the next morning and staying all day, and as long as she was in the hospital I would do the same. I wasn’t allowed to drive though, so again, thank God for my mother. We were able to get there super early and stay all day with her. On July 31st, she was five days old. I went early to the hospital in a SUPER good mood. It was my birthday and I kept telling my mom, all I wanted was to have Kairi come home, that would be the best gift ever. My mom dropped me off at the front of the children’s hospital so that I wouldn’t have to walk a long way. I went up right away to the area where her room was. There was a security lady at the desk who was there everyday and watched me as I washed my hands. When they were dry, she unlocked the door so that I could come in. When I got around to Kairi’s room, I saw a hospital staff woman telling two new parents everything about the room. No Kairi, no Kairi’s incubator, none of her stuffed animals that we had brought for her. I was confused and scared; I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. Everyone turned around and just looked at me as if I was disturbing them. They closed the door to give themselves privacy as I just stared at the room in horror. Finally, a short little nurse came over to me and asked with the biggest attitude, “Can I help you with something?” As if to say, “What the hell are you doing just standing here?” I stayed with my eyes fixed on the room still in shock as I answered, “My daughter was in this room, where is she?” The nurse looked at me like I was completely insane and I burst out in tears. As I sobbed hysterically, she rushed off to the desk to find out what was going on. When she came back, she led me all the way to the other side of the hospital to another step down from this NICU, it was level three, which means, the next step from there was going home. This was a good move, it meant that Kairi would be coming home soon. But I was so frustrated and angry that no one had told me that they moved her. I’m sure this is well known, but after you have a baby, you are very emotional. I think I was even suffering from post partum depression, and my early morning birthday surprise left me crying the entire day. I could not stop, even when I was able to hold Kairi. Actually, holding her probably made me cry more. I was thinking all of these crazy things of what could have happened to her, and it was really upsetting me. Tomorrow I will write part 3.....