This article is a continuation from Premature Hope - The Calm Before the Storm

Having a baby is a big deal. There are a lot of people you need to call, ranging from family and friends to bosses and insurance companies. After leaving Caitlin in the NICU and going back to Lori’s room, the two of us called 20+ people in the course of an hour.

Here’s how most of my phone conversations went:

“Hi so-and-so, how are you?”

“Good, good. Well, we just had our baby!”

“A little girl named Caitlin Arielle!”

“Yes, I know, she wasn’t due for another six weeks.”

“Uh-huh…yes…we’re very excited.”

“Well, she’s in the neonatal intensive care unit right now.”

“Yeah, it’s just precautionary because she came so early.”

“OK - OK - OK - OK - OK - alright - OK - Thanks! Keep us in your thoughts. Bye.”

Lori’s were a bit more involved, but they covered the same ground. Most people were shocked to hear that Caitlin had come so early, and to be honest, we could relate. Based on what Lori told me every day of the week prior, I thought that Caitlin would come 3-4 weeks early (not 6 weeks).

After an hour or so of phone calls, Lori’s parents arrived at the hospital with Ty. I met them in the lobby, and Ty came running up to me and gave me a big hug and kiss. He danced around happily, and his enthusiasm was contagious.

We walked slowly back to the room because Ty wanted to stop and look at every new thing he saw along the way. “Daddy, daddy,” he’d say, “What’s that?…What’s that?”

When we finally got there and he saw Lori, he screeched “Mama!” He did the happy feet dance again, and then ran over to Lori. Of course, she picked him right up, which she wasn’t supposed to do. I swear - you’d never know that she just had a baby a few hours earlier.

We talked to her parents for a few minutes, and then Lori and I went back over to see Caitlin. The doctor was by her bedside writing in her chart when we walked up. We noticed that Caitlin now had a cannula taped to her face and a small tube running down her mouth to her stomach.

The doctor informed us that within the last hour, Caitlin’s blood pressure took a slight drop (this is important for later, so tuck it in the back of your mind). She was also still having trouble with blood oxygen levels. As a result, they needed to help her breathe a little better, and the tube in her mouth was to remove air and mucus that may build up in her stomach.

Before Caitlin was born, the doctor told us that preemies tend to need some kind of help. Since the lungs are the last things to fully develop and babies tend to learn how to breathe during the 34-36 week range of pregnancy, it’s fairly common for preemies to need respiratory assistance. Caitlin was breathing on her own, but the alveoli in her lungs were not expanding properly to exchange gases.

We expected there to be a few problems, and the doctors forewarned us of these potential blips. It was scary, especially for Lori, to see so many tubes stuck and taped to Caitlin, but if this is what she needed, then we understood that it had to be done.

We thanked the doctors and nurses for their help and efforts, and then we sat by Caitlin for an hour or so. Then, I offered to go take Ty for a walk, so that Lori’s parents could come back and see Caitlin (only immediate family is allowed in the NICU, and only 3 bedside visitors are allowed at a time).

We didn’t want Ty to see Caitlin with all of those tubes and wires stuck to her. He’s only 2-years-old, and it will be hard enough for him to understand who she is without all of the extra stuff attached.

I walked Ty around the entire hospital interior and exterior of the hospital. After a while, Lori called me to let me know that her sister, brother-in-law and our nephew just arrived, and I should go meet them. Our nephew is three months younger than Ty, and they’re great buddies. It was very nice that they came down to support Lori and help with Ty.

The rest of the day was spent alternating people visiting Caitlin; walking around the hospital MANY times; and, basically, having a party with eight people in a tiny hospital room where the only entertainment for the boys was the red biohazard trash can and foaming soap hand sanitizer on the wall. Finally, I went down to the gift shop and bought them a toy.

As it was getting close to dinner time, Lori’s family decided to go pick up some “real” food, as Lori was absolutely starving! I took advantage of the 90 minutes available to run home with Ty, get a quick shower, change my clothes and jet back up to the hospital just as they were getting back with the food.

It was a celebration, and the only thing that would have made it better was if Caitlin were in the room with us.

Rather than go into every detail about the next couple of days, I’ll summarize them like this:

1. We got almost ZERO sleep! I stayed in the hospital with Lori, and someone came in that room every 30 minutes. I about got to the point of propping a chair against the door and barricading ourselves in there for a few hours!

2. Caitlin seemed to get progressively better! The cannula was removed after a day or so, and her stats all looked like she was adjusting to life outside the womb just fine. Her feedings were increased slowly at first, then more rapidly on days 3 and 4.

3. Ty seemed to get progressively worse! Even though I went home for a few hours with him each day, he missed us and was beginning to get cranky. By Thursday, he also was starting to develop a slight cough and runny nose.

4. Lori looked better and better each day! She lost several pounds each day, and her body snapped back in shape like some kind of elastic superhero (supermom)! She was a little more emotional than normal, but otherwise she was doing phenomenally well.

5. I worked my way slowly to the point of complete exhaustion. Unlike Lori, the nurses in the hospital would not give me any sleeping pills. I think I got a total of eight hours of sleep in three days, and I could feel that Ty’s cold was spreading to me.

Lori was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, so that night was the first night that I was able to get some rest. Ty woke up a few times, but I was able to calm him back to sleep within minutes. Lori got up early with him on Thursday, so she could spend some time snuggling with him before going back up to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital on Thursday, things were looking really good with Caitlin. She would be up to full feeds today, and they were talking about moving her out of the isolette and into an open crib (the last step before coming home).

During the day, the nurse recommended that we get her car seat ready so that they could do a test on her whenever the doctor gave the orders. All signs pointed to the possibility of her coming home within days, and we were extremely excited.

That afternoon, I felt like there was a lot of things I needed to get done at home to get ready for Caitlin’s arrival. The premature birth caught us in the middle of several projects. We decided to leave the hospital once she finished her afternoon feeding.

I worked my ass off the rest of the day. By the time dinner rolled around, I was back to being exhausted. We ate together as a family, and then I watched Ty while Lori and her mom went back up to the hospital to feed Caitlin. Ty went to sleep fairly early 9:30 p.m., and Lori got home shortly thereafter.

“Miss Caitlin didn’t want to eat tonight,” she said with a sad tone. “She just wanted to sleep.”

“Well, she’s been through a lot this week honey,” I said optimistically. “I’m sure she’s just tired.”

“Yeah, but a ‘missed feeding’ is like a black mark in her book, and they might not let her come home as quickly now,” she said.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, and she’ll be back on track tomorrow,” I said.

“I hope so,” said Lori, with a definite sense of mother’s intuition that something was wrong.

We all went to bed thinking about how nice it will be to have Caitlin home with us in a few short days. I was confident that things were going well, and I felt certain that everything was moving along nicely. Lori, on the other hand, had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. She had an uneasy feeling that would not go away.

A little after 4:00 a.m., the phone rang. Who the hell calls you at 4:00 a.m.? If it was a telemarketer, I was gonna go apeshit on his ass! It wasn’t a telemarketer though, as I quickly realized. It was the doctor from the NICU.

Lori answered the phone, sat up quickly in bed, and said, “Uh-huh…uh-huh…uh-huh…oh, no…what does that mean?….oh (crying starts)…..what should we do?…..OK…..OK…..OK….we’ll be in after rounds.” And then, she hung up and ran to the bathroom.

“What happened?” I said. “Is everything alright?”

“No,” she said, crying harder now. “I knew something was wrong tonight - I just knew it!”

“What?” I said anxiously. “What happened to Caitlin?”

Caitlin - so cute sleeping on Wednesday

Again, I’ll share more about our story tomorrow. In the meantime, feel free to get caught-up by reading the Related Posts below and see pictures of our baby girl Caitlin Arielle.

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