Matt returned to work for a few days here and there so he could spend more time home with us when Jack did come home. My parents took me down to Peoria on Friday morning, spent a little time with Jack and I, then I got to spend some alone time with my little man, then daddy came down.
Jack was now in an open air crib and wearing clothes. He was moved to a room with less critical babies and was just learning to suck properly so he could eat and gain weight. The nurses in the NICU were amazing. They helped us feel as much like a mom and dad as they could. They asked us to change diapers and take the baby's temperature. We even fed him. That night, we made sure we were there to do all the things we could for his 8:30 "feeding". I don't really remember the exact sequence of events, but I know I fed him and started to change his diaper. He spit up, then spit up a lot, then spit up out his nose...I was getting nervous, this was still all so new to me, but I knew that wasn't quite right. I called the nurse over. I changed his diaper, it was a funny color, tinted orangeish-red. I called the nurse over. She called other nurses over...They checked his belly for aspirate, or leftover food, through his NG tube, she pulled out what seemed like 10 syringes full of formula from his little belly, it could have been more...I knew in my gut that wasn't good.
Before we knew it, we were standing watching a flurry of activity going on around us with many, many doctors, nurses, surgeons, respiratory therapists, x-ray technicians, etc. working on our baby boy. I remember exactly where my husband and I were standing in the NICU. We had no idea what was going on but we knew something was wrong, very wrong. I remember the on call doctor coming in. It seemed like he came from home with his Illini t-shirt, jeans and slippers on. He immediately attended to Jack. We stood there, panicked, and waited to hear what the doctor had to say. None of the nurses would tell us anything. Jack was quickly put in a warmer bed so the doctors and nurses could more easily do their job.
Matt and I were keeping it together pretty good for not knowing what was going on. We were in complete shock that this was happening to our baby...he was fine all day! Finally the doctor came over to us. He had a look of concern on his face. He introduced himself to us, and told us that our son had a serious infection called necrotizing enteracolitis. I remember him telling us that Jack might have to have surgery that night and him telling us a few other things about what was happening with our son. Basically, necrotizing entracolitis, referred to as NEC, is a sort of virus that "eats" away at the intestines. He said that Jack had a lot of his intestines compromised. We asked him what this all meant and I will never, ever forget what he said..."Well, you can't live without your intestines". That was his way of telling us that our baby might not make it. I guess you could say that Matt and I lost it, right then and there.
Eventually, Jack was "stabilized", and the rushing around calmed down. He was in very critical condition. He was put on a ventilator because his tummy was so swollen it was pushing on his lungs and diaphragm and he couldn't breathe. He had a lot of IV's and was getting many strong antibiotics. He was having x-rays and labs every hour. He was on pretty strong pain medicine. His NG tube was replaced with a replogle tube that suctioned all of the bad stuff from his stomach. His little body was almost lifeless except for his little face wincing in pain every once and while. His face looked like a crying baby, but there was no noise because of the ventilator. He was so sick and in so much pain. I wanted nothing more than for it to be me lying there. We just wanted to hold him and comfort him. But now we could hardly touch our very fragile little boy.
Our very sick little baby boy.
We could only put out finger in his hand to touch him. Even though he was so sick, he was still able to grip our fingers.
Why did this happen to him? To us? Why couldn't it have happened to me instead. He doesn't deserve this! So many things ran through our heads. And yes, of course I blamed myself, that I did something wrong during the pregnancy. If only I could have stayed on bed rest longer, this wouldn't have happened. His pain was our pain, and we were in a lot of it. We basically stood vigil at his bed that night until the surgeons could come in the morning and see what they were dealing with.
We spend the night in the NICU family room, right down the hall from out baby who was fighting for his life. The nurses told us that it was going to be a long couple of days and that we needed to get some rest. I remember not really sleeping that night. I would wake up gasping for air every time I fell asleep. I just wanted to be with my baby and comfort him, to let him know that his mommy was there. I wanted to kiss it and make it better, but I knew I needed to rely on the doctors for that.
I remember my husband not being able to keep it together anymore when he laid his eyes on our baby. I told him he could no longer cry around Jack, that we had to be positive and strong for him. We talked to him, sang to him, told him to be a fighter, be strong, and told him repeatedly how much we loved him.
We were with him very early the next morning and the doctors said that Jack was immediately going to surgery. We went with him as far as we could go and quickly met the surgeon, anestheologist and nurse. Everyone kept asking us if this was our first baby.
And then the painful wait for news on the little love of our life...
This is a very personal experience that I am sharing. It has taken me many days to get up the courage to write this down. I constantly have flashbacks of this night and have shed many, many tears while writing this. These memories are fuzzy because of the stress we endured that night. Our thoughts were with our baby and no where else. I am hoping that if I get these thought out of my head, they will finally stop haunting me.
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