At 10:52pm tonight, Judah turned one week old.
…They really do grow up so fast.
Life in the NICU is surreal and strange and yet amazingly, you learn to adapt with remarkable speed and grace. Larry and I have been here continuously since Friday afternoon. The birch flooring, the fluorescent lighting, the beeps and alarms, the ever-present smell of anti-septic soaps and hand sanitizer, the shuffle of Crocs as doctors and nurses walk these halls. The speciality recliner and rocking chair in each room that looks comfortable in theory but in practice – sitting in them for hours at a time – offer a different story.
We should buy stock in Aveeno hand lotion.
* * *
When I get to the scrub station, if another visitor comes after me and finishes scrubbing down before me, I silently judge them.
* * *
“And about his little soft nose and his round black eyes there was something familiar, so that the Boy thought to himself: ‘Why, he looks just like my old Bunny that was lost when I had scarlet fever!’
But he never knew that it really was his own Bunny, come back to look at the child who had first helped him to be Real.”
I finished reading Judah his first story this week, The Velveteen Rabbit.
Larry is perched on the desk chair next to Judah’s isolette, one of the doors open, a hand gently placed on Judah’s head, as he begins his second story:
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
Larry got to hold him for a solid hour on Friday morning and played him his first song, “Alamode” by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers:
* * *
I had to buy some new clothes on Friday morning; since I had come down to NJ for my shower last weekend, I had only brought enough clothes for a few days. And I certainly hadn’t anticipated giving birth, so I needed some clothes that actually fit me post-partum. It was nice to put on a pair of pants that actually button and zip.
When I got to the hospital Friday afternoon, I was eagerly looking forward to his 5:30pm feeding so I could hold him. At this point, Larry and I were actively involved in his care: checking his temperature, changing his diaper. Larry has, funnily enough, been stuck with every poopy diaper whereas I’ve only had to change wet ones. So when it was time to change his diaper, I (somewhat reluctantly) jumped at the chance.
That’s when things changed very, very quickly.
* * *
There’s a simple reason doctors and nurses call necrotizing enterocolitis “NEC” for short. It’s only slightly less terrifying to hear as a parent of a child born 5 weeks early.
Judah’s bloody diaper, when combined with his lethargy we all had attributed to his being able to nurse for a half hour the previous day along with the removal of his IV line, combined with a cluster of Bradys just before his care at 5:30, sent out immediate red flags to his care team. An x-ray was ordered STAT which confirmed a significant presence of pneumatosis (air bubbles) within his intestinal walls.
His feeding tube was removed from his nose. A suction tube was put down his throat. No more feedings. Three different antibiotics. X-rays twice daily. And the IV… He takes after mom because it took them three tries to get his IV back in. They had to go in through his foot. I sobbed in the family room as I heard his desperate wails from down the hall, frantic at wanting to run in there and take my baby away from all these needles and foreign hands but knowing that all of this is necessary for his survival.
We slept little and cried much, staying in the Ronald McDonald overnight room.
* * *
His next x-ray showed a decrease in the pneumatosis. He was alert and aware. By his fifth x-ray this evening, the neonatologist didn’t see any air bubbles. He’ll have a few more x-rays before they’ll officially confirm him “in the clear.” For now, we remain in “over the hump.”
Judah continues to prove the meaning of his name – the most powerful of the twelve tribes of Israel. Takeshi – Japanese for “fierce warrior,” an ancient word describing samurai.
I did some checking and Judah’s haftorah portion this week is about the birth of Sampson, born to a barren couple – and yet another fighter.
Today, he was fussy. Fussy is good. Fussy means he’s getting back to normal, a relative term of course given the fact that he’s only a week old. Larry and I took some much needed time to get out of these hospital walls while his parents stayed with Judah. We had a nice dinner at a restaurant just down the road from the hospital; I had my first glass of wine in 9 months and some delicious unpasteurized cheeses. It was glorious.
After the intensity of the past 72 hours, we needed it.
* * *
With his responding so positively to every intervention thus far, our nurse thought it would be okay for me to hold him in some kangaroo care this afternoon. He slept curled up on my chest for over an hour as I played songs on my phone, humming along as he listened to my breathing and heartbeat – such familiar sounds he heard so much more closely only but a week ago.
It was the first time I’d held him since Thursday.
From Naso, Judah’s Torah portion this past week:
כד. יְבָרֶכְךָ יְהוָֹה וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ:
כה. יָאֵר יְהוָֹה | פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וִיחֻנֶּךָּ:
כו. יִשָּׂא יְהוָֹה | פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם:May the Lord bless you and watch over you.
May the Lord cause His countenance to shine to you and favor you.
May the Lord raise His countenance toward you and grant you peace.
Amen.
