First Days

The stats: 2 lb 3 oz, 13 inches, and a whole lot of feisty.

The first days after our son was born are kind of a blur.

They let us stay 3 nights (instead of 2) in the hospital since we were in close contact with the doctors at that point. This mean we celebrated New Year's Eve in the hospital too. Recovery wasn't too bad, but it took me a while to regain my strength enough to walk.

My husband saw our son for the first time when I wasn't there. I really should ask him about it. Later that day, they brought me a blue piece of paper with our son's footprints. He had big feet. His 2nd toe was longer than his big toe - just like me!

The day after he was born, they wheeled me in my hospital bed to the NICU. They'd offered a tour when I was pregnant, but I decided I didn't want to see it yet. I couldn't believe it. I'd expected little metal beds in rows, and this place had a little "home" for each baby and murals on the walls. It was really nice. Lots of beeps. Lots of babies.

Peanut, as we called him, was in the corner nearest the doctor's room. We thought that was a nice place to be! We couldn't touch him or hold him, but just look. I imagined he would look like a newborn, just smaller. He was longer and skinnier than I expected. I couldn't see his face because he was intubated and it was hiding under tape. He had a lot of hair. His skin was red - like lobster red. I remember thinking "I need to figure out a way to quantitatively recall how small he really was"...and then I measured. That's the engineer in me. His wrist was as big around as my pinky finger.

We were told he was doing well. I didn't know what that meant, but to me, it meant he was fighting. They said he was really cute and very, very feisty. Funny - he still is.

Lots of things happened the first several days. Blood transfusions, ventilators, collapsed lung due to a pneumothorax requiring an oscillator, head ultrasounds revealing worst grade (4) and a (2) IVH, and correcting his open PDA ducturs in his heart (thankfully via medicine, not surgery). It was tough. But Peanut was fighting and after a week, fairly stabilized. The doctors were pretty sure he would make it.