Monday, January 7, 2013

Maks is on a lot of medications. His immature organs are used to mommy doing all the work, and now they are forced to function independently with no placental or maternal support. Dopamine is a medication he is given to help maintain his blood pressure, and more importantly his MAP (mean arterial pressure). An adequate MAP is required to ensure adequate blood flow through the vasculature of the body and to the vital organs. Anyway, as long as Maks is on dopamine, he must be monitored very closely. He also cannot have any breast milk, nor can he be held or agitated. For this reason, he is also being kept sedated with Versed. So the goal was to start weaning him off the dopamine, and this started on Monday. He had lots of ups and downs as the nurses began to titrate down on the medication. He started out on 11mcg/kg, and I believe by the end of Monday he was on 7. It wasn't a huge change, but we were very excited to see that he was tolerating the decrease and that we were seeing progress.

I started getting worked up about Monday before the day even came. This is because of my experience after the birth of Milyn. I remember postpartum day 2 very well because of the huge hormonal change and emotions that I experienced. Monday was day 2 after the birth of Maks. I woke up early for a pain pill and to pump. I made the huge mistake of turning on the television. As I flipped through the channels, I came to TLC, and A Baby Story was on. Although I knew it would be a bad idea to watch this, I watched it anyway. STUPID!! I watched two episodes and bawled through both of them, as I saw their perfectly planned deliveries fall into place. I watched them preparing for the baby at home, packing their suit cases for the hospital, putting their gowns on and taking pictures at the hospital, wheeling into the OR for their nicely scheduled C-sections, receiving encouragement from their husbands, and beaming as their loudly crying newborns were shown to them right after they were delivered. I couldn't help but feel gypped. I was so not prepared for Maks to be here. With Milyn, I counted the weeks and knew exactly how big she was compared to the produce at the grocery store. I knew exactly how far along I was, and I took pregnancy pictures every week. With Maks, I just hadn't followed my pregnancy as closely; I knew I was pregnant, I did everything I could to stay healthy, but I knew the baby was coming, and I didn't feel the need to think about it all the time. Therefore, it is almost as if I hadn't yet accepted the fact that I was pregnant because it simply wasn't soon enough to worry about it. And now I had a tiny baby in the NICU, not a baby wiggling in my belly. It was jut weird. I had a few other breakdown moments throughout the day, but still felt a little in fight or flight mode. I think it will take a little longer for me to process this through than with my first pregnancy/delivery. One of these days the numbness will go away and the reality this whole situation will truly set in. For now, I think I will stick with the numbness.

My sister Lindsay got here on Monday. She was so nice to drive here from Boise to help me with Milyn and to help clean my house and get groceries for when I came home from the hospital. A big thanks to her husband Mark for letting her come and to Mark's parents for going to Boise to help him with his three girls! Lindsay arrived in town and came to the hospital that afternoon to visit. I had a couple of other visitors throughout the day including my good friends Mallory Lords and Nicole Streeper. It was so good to see them, and their visits definitely lifted my mood. Logan also brought Milyn in to see me. I hadn't seen her since we hurried to the hospital on Saturday, and I swear she changed so much in that two days. She just looked so grown up, and all she wanted to do was sit by mommy. I look pretty rough, but I couldn't help but post a picture of that moment.


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