La vida NICU

Before having a 3-pound baby, I'd never given a single dang thought to the NICU.  Now not only do I think about it, but I imagine coming into large sums of money and donating it to NICUs around the globe because, man!, they do some thiiiiings.

Hamb and I spend most of our free time at the Overlake NICU in Bellevue.  It's no snazzy coffee shop with board games and foamy milk and jazzy music, but we like it.  Our baby is there and all.

P's room back when she had that weird, clear, baby cage

Each baby has their own room at this NICU.  Phoebe welcomes us into hers, something she may be hesitant to do fifteen years from now.  We enter via a sliding door into a hall o' nurses who come in for feedings, to check on concerning beeps, to soothe crybabies, etc.  When I need to whip out the bosom for pumping or baby nuzzles, we close the door curtain so other NICU parents can't ogle my glorious chest.

In Phoebe's room, we have a crib (see ya, isolette!), cozy rolly chair for baby time, li'l couch that converts into a bed, shelves and a closet for our crap, and other medical stuff.  We've learned where back-up diapers are stored for proportionally impressive baby poops, how to turn off the annoying, "OMG THE FOOD IS DONE THE FOOD IS DONE COME CHECK TO MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS OK!" beeper, and - wait for it - how to move our baby from point A to point B!  (This last thing is new in the last couple days.)

Whiteboard of cute, useful info

The super-secure NICU requires us to call in and share our secret code to get in (h no, you can't know it) (unless you read the hospital bracelet I'm required to wear... but I always wave my wrists erratically, so you have no chance at that), so you know the folks wandering the halls by the rooms are either staff or NICU families.  There are 12 NICU rooms, but sometimes only 3 or 4 are filled.  We don't know much about the other babies other than their names (thanks to adorbs name tags outside their doors) and how long they've been there; most babies are in and out within a couple days.  Only two other babies have been there as long as Phoebe, and I've only seen their parents once each.  I assume Phoebe has the best personality of all the babies, but I'll never be able to prove it due to all the dang privacy.  

Cute sign about being 4 lbs

I'm guessing the NICU employs around 25 nurses.  While we've had some a dozen times already, occasionally a new face shows up and we're suspicious... until they turn out to be as swell as the rest of the nurses.  Every person we've encountered is pleasant to us and downright delightful to the baby.  Plus, some of them make cute signs.  These nurses are like the ideal mix of a preschool teacher (crafty, sweet); doctor (well-versed in medicine); and painter of miniature figurines (able to deal with tiny things).

Hamb spends a few hours at the NICU about five days a week, and I spend between four and eight hours there every day, so we've become comfortable hanging out in rooms that smell like hand sanitizer and optimism.  Still, as grateful as we are for Phoebe's quality care, we'll be ready when our daughter declares, "I can do regular baby things.  Let's get on home."

Kangaroo care

When I was pregnant, I remember thinking how weird it would be if I were a marsupial and my fetus decided to climb out of me underdeveloped and then finish growing in an exterior pouch.  Well, that's kind of what happened, and that's kind of what happens to premature human babies all over the dang world.

Hamb and I are fortunate enough to live in driving distance to plenty of great hospitals, but in some countries, preemies don't have access to cozy isolettes and well-trained doctors, so their survival/thriving rates were much lower than in developed nations.  Then, somebody was like, "Look what happens when this baby snuggles up on its mom!  OMG! Stability!"

It turns out that these preemies kind of wanted the marsupial pouch experience.  You can't blame them.  It's cozy.

Now "Kangaroo Care" is used almost all day in places where medical technology isn't as advanced, and it's used frequently plenty of other places.  Study after study have shown that when babies are snugged up on a parent's chest, their temperature, heartbeat, and breathing regulate.  It's during this stable, sleepy time that the babies do almost all of their growing.

My view during Kangaroo Care

Apparently my body knows what to do as well as the baby's body during "Kangaroo Care."  When I sense her getting too hot or too cold, my boobs change temperature!  Really!  (I haven't actually noticed this.  Medical studies told me.)  Also, K-care releases all sorts of hormones in me that makes pumping (and later breastfeeding) wildly successful.  Post-cuddle milkfest!

All this means that Hamb and I have been taking off our shirts and cuddling with the baby.  (Not both of us at once, weirdo.)  We do it during her feeding time (which is just when a vial of milk is being slowly pushed into a tube that goes down her nose into her stomach) so she associates feeding with skin.  Because of our schedules, we probably get in a total of 2-3 hours a day, but once she's home it's practically going to be an all day kangaroo party.  (Besides the boxing.  Don't kangaroos box?)

Since "Kangaroo Care" and "Skin-to-skin" time is being used more and more in hospitals, you'll probably see plenty of pictures of both moms and dads sans shirt cuddling up with their babies.  It's not just us bragging about our hot bods (though that is definitely part of it), but rather giving our babies the best shot at growing up and bragging about THEIR hot bods.

How the gal grows

Phoebe is experiencing her third trimester outside of the womb.  That's so bizarre.  Like, the things she's doing are about the same as she'd be doing if she were in my belly, minus all the wires she's hooked up to.  And the breathing.  And the occasional bleating like a goat.

In many ways, she's like a regular newborn but teenier.  She was 16.5 inches long at birth (possibly shorter now since her cone head has gone down some), and a full-term baby is about 20 inches long.   That means most of the weight difference is made up in chub.  She's skinny like Hamb, except it's not quite as handsome on a baby.

Awake, wired up, and cone-headed!

Fortunately, I have a plethora of excess ounces to transfer her way via boob milk.  I pump my milk bags every 2-3 hours, just as often as if she were nursing regularly.  (This has challenged my initial thought of, "The only nice thing of having a baby in the NICU is that I'll get more sleep than I would if she were home right now.")  Then I deliver it to the NICU nurses, and they stick it in a tube that goes through Phoebe's nose into her stomach.  She eats 30 ml (about one ounce) every 3 hours.  That seems like a lot, but we need to bulk up this baby!  Right now, she's 10 grams (about a third of an ounce) from her birth weight, and the goal is to get her gaining 20-30 grams a day.  

A week and a half ago, I couldn't have told you much about why breast milk was great except that smart people told me it was, so I believed them.  Now, those smart people have given me details.  In addition to helping babies gain weight, breast milk also helps their brains develop more quickly (something about certain fats) and - get this - I PASS ON ANTIBODIES TO HER!  So let's say I'm exposed to some li'l virus at 1:00 PM.  By 2:00 PM, my body has figured out a way to fight that virus and then I pass that "immuno-knowledge" to Phoebe in the next breastfeeding session.  Whaaaat!

For some reason, my breastmilk is also helping Phoebe become more resistant to other dumb diseases and health hassles later in life including cancer, diabetes, allergies, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (something she has a 1 in 10 chance of getting, what with my Crohn's and all).

All of this makes the 4:30 AM alarm and "Pump!" message that flashes on my phone screen far more tolerable.  When she's home and eventually able to breastfeed (34 weeks gestational age at the earliest - her brain can't tell her how to multi-task sucking, swallowing, and breathing right now), I'll think of her midnight whinings for food as a request for magic disease-fighters.  That's kind of bad ass, and I'd much rather cuddle up to a baby than a hospital-grade breast pump anyway.

A Birthday Post

What better reason to resurrect a blog than Phoebe Jean Hambleton?  Folks have inquired about our baby's startling escape from my uterus, so here's the tale from the beginning:

Background - It was Saturday, June 28th at 10:00 PM.  I was 30 weeks, 6 days pregnant (out of 40 weeks, if you need some context).  I was wearing my gray-striped t-shirt.

And I was sitting in this exact seat - eastern-most at the dining room table, typing on the laptop, sitting on the red cushion - when I thought, "I sure do have to pee, as usual."  This was no normal pee sesh, however.  It was a li'l red.

I came out of the bathroom, saw Hamb, and said, "Don't panic, but I'm bleeding.  I'm going to call the doctor and they'll tell me to come in, but it's probably nothing."  He did panic a bit, especially when I started leaking like a failed water balloon.  Drew tossed three baby books in a bag, escorted our dog to the Toyota Matrix, and we moseyed down to the Group Health Birthing Center on Capitol Hill.  (Question for Hamb: Why did we take the Matrix?  Why not our spanking new Subaru Outback?)

Sweet nurses and doctors started poking around and confirmed our concerns that yes, in fact, my water had broken. Dr. Something explained, "Our goal is to keep you pregnant as long as you can be up until 34 weeks, at which time we'll induce you to avoid the infection risks.  Until then, you'll be on bed rest here."  (It should be noted that at this point, I felt zero pain and zero contractions.)  "However, if you end up going into labor some time this week, we'll transport you to UW or Overlake where their NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is better prepared for babies under 32 weeks," she elaborated.

At this point, Hamb drove home to transfer our dog to in-laws Ben and BSands and pick up 3-week bed-rest essentials like my body pillow, phone charger, and current book club book.

The body pillow was useless.  My contractions started right as Hamb returned to the hospital.

The Group Health doctors injected me with a steroid to develop the baby's lungs and something else to temporarily slow my contractions.  Then a few EMTs rolled me into an ambulance and swept me OVER the LAKE to Overlake Hospital while Hamb drove closely behind.  It was a pleasant trip.  No contractions, just stories of the drunks the EMTs had been dealing with.

---Note: I had to confer with Hamb about these next details.  Apparently I fell asleep.  Who knew?--- Once I arrived at the hospital, a nurse named Christina helped me get settled in and updated my stats on the white board in the room.  My goal for the day: "Stay pregnant!"

I did not achieve that goal.

The contractions started returning around sunrise, so the doctors started pumping me with magnesium.  Supposedly this has several benefits, one of which is that the magnesium replaces some of the calcium in your muscles so contractions can't be as forceful.  (Weird.  Science is weird.)  Around this time, Nurse Christina (who was delightful during our few interactions) was replaced by Nurse Christine (the world's best nurse), a sassy version of Ann Perkins who at one point told my dad that though she couldn't examine his knee, she could examine his vagina.  Haha!  Hahaha!

Around 9:00, our families start showing up.  Drew's parents came in and were lovely.  My parents and Grandma DoDo came in and were lovely.  The NICU doctor came in and explained what I can expect from a nine-week-early baby.  The ultrasound technician came in and examined the unborn baby (whose heart was beating healthily and diaphragm was hiccuping enthusiastically).  Christine taught me some coping strategies we would have learned if I could have gone to the last 6 classes of our 7-class birthing series.

All was well!  We were happy!  Even through the hot-flashy fuzz of the magnesium!

Then shit starts getting real.  The contractions start being painful and frequent.  We give up on the dream of giving baby another shot of lung-helping steroids.  At 10:45ish I kick out my family.  At 11:15ish I have a conversation with Christine about drugs.  At 11:55ish I'm being wheelchaired to the delivery room (and told there is no time for drugs) as Christine wrangles the necessary doctors and nurses.  At 12:07, I push out a baby.  I see she's pink, I hear her cry, and someone said, "It's a girl!  She's a girl!"

The rest runs together, but I know that Hamb followed our daughter to the NICU while I got cleaned up.  Our parents came in to celebrate with us, and at some point Hamb came back to tell me that our girl was 3 pounds, 5 ounces of breathing, cone-headed Hambleton.

We told our parents to go to lunch and that when they returned, we'd have picked out a name.  We knew the middle name Jean - we each have a grandmother named Jean - and it took us about eight seconds to agree that of the names on our short list, Phoebe was the best fit.

So that, interested parties, is how Phoebe Jean Hambleton was born.  I'll post Phoebe updates here (along with other sentiments, probably about blueberries) to keep Phoebe phans happy.