Reagan's Story Part 3

Catch up on Part 1 and 2 if you missed Reagan's story from the beginning.

At UAB the NICU is designated into levels and then "step-downs" as the babies improve. The day Reagan was born we started off in the highest level. There is one nurse per baby because the babies are such high risk. When Reagan was born we all assumed that she would be dependent upon a ventilator at all times. Due to the good Lord above and those wonderful steroid shots she surprised us all. We made it thru the first day and night without needing a thing! It was truly a miracle in itself. We were told over and over how amazing it was that Reagan was never on a ventilator or any type of breathing machines for help. Side note: We give all praise to HIM!!

The first few weeks were blurry. Since I had to have a c-section I couldn't drive so TC, my parents or his parents would drive me up about 8 am everyday. We had unlimited access to her so we could sit in the nursery with her the entire day. In the very beginning we really couldn't even touch her because she was so sensitive. Her skin was basically see thru and the nerve endings were so close that when we touched her, it physically hurt her. I would barely stroke her back and it would make her flinch. I remember those being some of the hardest times when I just wanted to feel her.

 I would take a book or a magazine and sit in a chair beside her isolette everyday. One of my favorite NICU doctors would always find me there and would laugh saying I was going to stare a hole into her. We started off fairly well in the beginning. Each day in the NICU is a roller coaster ride. You think things are great and then your world gets turned upside down in seconds.

 About the second or third night a resident came up to my hospital room for me to sign a paper giving consent for a spinal tap. It was so incredibly scary to allow them to do this to my 1 pound baby, but I knew for her health she needed it. I think I cried the whole hour until they called back and told me she had done well and was resting.

 Our first major scare was when they discovered she had somehow contracted MRSA. This is a VERY scary thing and can kill adults easily. It's basically a type of "staph" that does not respond to antibiotics. The day this was realized we instantly got moved to an isolated nursery of only other babies who are infected as well. (We still don't know how she got this?)

 At one point Reagan was on four different antibiotics at one time. There are only 4 that they can give to such small babies and usually they are on only one at a time. Reagan wasn't responding to the first two very well, so she was on all four at one time. This was a scary moment because if she did not improve there wasn't many other options.

 A daily struggle with babies this small is the blood counts. Their bodies are so small they do not make new cells quickly enough. Reagan was about two weeks old and TC and I were spending the night in a hotel room in Birmingham. A doctor called us about 1 AM. They needed us to verbally approve Reagan getting a blood transfusion. I freaked out and told them I could be there in 5 minutes and the Dr. informed us it would have to be now and they couldn't wait. Of course we agreed and raced to the hospital. By the time we got there she was fine and had her blood transfusion completed. She was literally see thru that night when we left her and when we got there about 2 AM she was a total different color. We couldn't believe the improvement from those couple of hours and a little bit of blood.

One of our daily struggles with Reagan was her feeding tube. They would tape it to the side of her mouth or place it down her nose and tape it to the side of her nose. Somehow she would rip it out over and over. She would also rip out her IV's frequently. They would have them in her hand, on her feet and sometimes in her head. She still has tiny scars from them to this day.

I can remember them giving me the smallest syringes of breast milk and I would get to put it thru her tube. We would be so proud when she would take 4 or 5 cc's. If you know anything about amounts that is practically nothing but it would fill her up!

The babies would get weighed on nightshift and each day if we weren't there I would call to see her improvement. Sometimes it was nothing but sometimes it would be an ounce or two. There were a couple of times she had digestive problems and we would have to stop her feedings and start from scratch again. I think the day she drank her first full ounce of milk I sat there and cried. She was actually drinking from a bottle and drinking a whole ounce of milk.

 TC and I were there the first day she got to move to an open crib. This was a very proud moment for us. She looked like a real baby just really tiny!! She was only about 3.5 pounds when they moved her to the open crib. We dressed her in the tiniest premie clothes we could find and they still hung off of her.

There are plenty more small issues that we overcame while we were there. It ended up being around 6 weeks when we came home on Dec 20, 2009. Just in time for Christmas!! On the day we brought her home she weighed approximately 4lbs and 3 ounces. She was too small for her car seat so we had her stuck in there with blankets around her. I remember TC and I being scared to death, but we figured it out like all new parents do! What a miracle story I have to tell… ALL THE GLORY TO GOD!