Finally the day arrives and on Friday night she’s given a clean bill of health and discharge papers to come home. Look how cute she is without wires and tubes all over her?
What better way to start her life of adventure than with a frog in her pocket? Seeing the entire outside world for the first time wiped her out though. Welcome home Phoebe. Judging by your behavior in the NICU, I hope the world is ready for you.
Remember how in the last picture she had the feeding tube in her mouth? Well it was that night she really figured out how to pull it out so when we came back the next morning we find this.
Now it’s through her nose to make it much harder for her to remove it.
We do get to do some skin to skin and hold her against us for the first time.
When she sleeps, she sleeps hard.
Right around here was where she figured out how to use me to rub her breathing tube out.
We were extremely encouraged at how much better her skin was looking and how strong she was acting. It was still upsetting we wouldn’t get to have her home for Thanksgiving, but being able to breathe is a good skill to have.
Monday comes around and Mom is ready to be discharged. Phoebe is staying a little longer to make certain her lungs are strong and healthy. We go down in the morning to see her in the NICU and are presented by this site.
She has pulled her feet up and under her with such strength she’s untucked the ace bandages that held her in place. She is a determined creature and will not be told how she’s going to sleep.
Mom goes home, but Dad has to head into work. It’s right before Thanksgiving break, so nothing too serious with the students that day. We’re playing a review game which allows students to put in any nickname they want. Suddenly I see Phoebe Litman with a baby emoji up on the leader board.
Couldn’t quite get the win, but clearly she has great knowledge of earth science for being only 50 hours old.
We head back to visit her one more time before sleeping in our own bed that night. Please note in this photo her feeding tube is still in her mouth.
I haven’t gotten a good shot of them yet, but she has beautiful gray blue eyes.
Please note here how the nurses are wrapping her with her arms somewhat separate so that she can’t pull leads off anymore.
Nope, still not sick of having my finger held by her.
Tiny tootsies!
Some reassuring back rubs from Mom make everything better.
Poor girl didn’t like the nose tube at all, but that didn’t stop us and the nurses from marveling at that red haired mohawk. You should also take a good look at the color of the skin of her hands and compare that to some of the more recent photos.
My hand is being held by Phoebe for the first time here and it was the most incredible feeling. Even in the beginning she had a surprisingly strong grip.
More of her holding my hand.
The two most beautiful women I could ever imagine.
At first I moved the blanket to get another shot of her hair and she gave me quite the disgruntled look. In fairness I don’t like bright lights at 5 in the morning either.
The NICU was called before Phoebe was even born. It became obvious to the nurse that there was some amount of fetal distress when she observed meconium in the amniotic fluid. We were allowed to spend around a half hour with her immediately after she was born. It was clear to us that there was something wrong with her breathing. She was coughing quite a bit and expelling a brownish fluid when she did.
Watching your first child be born and then seeing her be brought so suddenly into the NICU is something that would have stressed me out more if I wasn’t so exhausted. Over the next couple days the nervousness certainly climbed a great deal higher.
She was hooked up to a feeding tube, a breathing tube with 25% oxygen, an IV, a heartbeat monitor, a blood oxygen monitor, and a respiration rate monitor. The chest x-ray she received showed what we feared. Her lungs her clogged with something. The odds were it was some meconium she aspirated on the way out, but that might have brought some bacteria with it. The lungs are already the last organ to form in utero and then to add in pneumonia on top of it is an enormous strain on new lungs. She was put on a two day course of antibiotics and we were told that she’d be reevaluated Monday to see if she could be discharged along with Mom.
This is where I need to thank several people for keeping Mom and Dad sane during this time. Wendy, Natalie, and Nicole were some of her first nurses who really got us feeling situated with how to visit her and what we could do to support her even when we couldn’t pick her up or hold her. All of the NICU nurses were truly amazing people and I’m certain I’m forgetting someone there. All grandparents were ready at every hour of the day to offer support over the phone. We were extremely lucky to have lived with three people for a couple years in Iowa City and they drove the 18 hour trip to see us. Per, Becca, and Joe kept us distracted with their awesomeness and helped us to not pace holes in the floor. Christina Motilall, Jackie Moore, and Chelsea Day all deserve gratitude as well for their own contributions for keeping us from losing our minds.
Monday comes around and we’re told the frustrating news that Phoebe’s lungs aren’t clear yet and that she’ll be staying until the next Saturday. She’ll be given an additional five days of antibiotics. We’re reassured that she’s heading in the right direction, but isn’t quite there yet and they want to be certain. I completely understand being cautious and I agreed that it was the right decision. I’d be lying if I told you I was happy with the progress though. I wanted her home!
Her oxygen was being turned down to closer to normal air and her skin was turning a much healthier shade. It wasn’t something I noticed right away, but was becoming obvious now. We were also allowed to pick her up and hold her skin to skin even though that was tricky because it often dislodged a lead which set off an alarm.
As she was getting stronger, dislodging her various wires became a favorite past time of hers. In her first four days she went through five IVs. She also got so good at pulling her feeding tube out that the nurses had to rerun it through her nose instead of her mouth. The first time I held her against my chest she nuzzled me which I thought was the most adorable display of affection I’d ever seen until I noticed a much louder air rush sound. She had used me as a hard surface to dislodge the air tube. I put it back in place and she promptly got rid of it a second time even faster than the first. She didn’t cry or anything, just found something she didn’t like, executed a plan to fix it, and when she was met with a setback learned how to do it more quickly. I didn’t expect to see creative problem solving out of her before she even hit her 100th hour of life. Thank goodness our house came pre child proofed.
Finally it was time to bring her home and the rest of her adventure to begin. Every Thanksgiving though her health will be foremost on my list of things to be thankful for and I’ll always think back to Phoebe’s first Thanksgiving which was spent in the NICU.
Phoebe's Phrolics 