Macie's Home Away From Home

 Here's a quick look at Macie's home away from home!   In the NICU, Macie had her own room, complete with a separate fridge and freezer for my breastmilk.  There was even a pump in the room and unlimited bottles available to me for storage.  She shared a nurse with 1-2 other babies.  I would feed her and snuggle her in the rocking chair next to her crib.  She had two different beds.  This typtical newborn "crib" and an isolette.  She was in the isolette during the time when she was on the bili light which kept her warm and prevented her skin from drying.  We couldn't go far from her crib because of the monitors she was connected to...

 

Macie and I were fortunate...this was her freezer supply about a week before she was discharged...I'd say there was more than enough for her to eat!  I'm currently applying to donate the excess milk so that other premature babies can benefit from having breastmilk.

Below is her white board.  Each day, her weight would be updated and the name of her nurse would be written in for each shift.  Mary Ellen was the one that I got to know as she was there most often when I was!  I would go daily from her 11 am feeding until after her 2 pm feeding, thereby only missing out on lunch and nap time with Aaron and Emily.  

Until the final few days of her stay, Macie was fed via NG tube when I was not there to nurse her...my milk would be warmed and then poured into this tube where gravity would drain it directly to her tummy.  Oral feedings became her final goal before discharge.  It took her some time to get past the preemie sleepiness to prioritize eating.  In the womb, babies don't need to expend energy to eat so we had to wait patiently for her to turn the corner and be ready to take all her nutrition by mouth.

In the first couple of weeks, this was where a lot of my attention went (when not staring at our adorable girl).  The numbers on the right were her monitors and those on the left were the shift nurse's other baby.  The green number was her heart rate, yellow was respiratory rate and blue was her O2 saturation.  Each lead had a different alarm, including ones that indicated a lead failure which happened often when transferring and positioning her!  I quickly learned which alarms to "worry" about, but Macie was a well-behaved, typical preemie! 

This is one of the complementary rooms for parents to stay in overnight to be near their newborns.  You had to reserve a room in advance and priority was given based on baby's extent of illness or whether or not baby was being breastfed.  Each room had a refrigerator, tv and bathroom...and an extremely hard bed.  I spent one night in this room the weekend before Macie was discharged so that I could feed her for a full 24 hour cycle.  I did not spend much time in here... ;)