Laura

Laura

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Journey Begins

Day 1-July 8th 2010

Seeing Laura for the first time since birth was definitely a, more or less, memorable one. I had a ton of feelings all hit me, the first look I took at her. All I could think of was how beautiful and precious she looked and so tiny! During my whole pregnancy I was expecting to have a larger baby, so to see something so small and tiny, caught me off guard. The first trip to the cardiac intensive care unit (CICU). Was very overwhelming. So many people introduced themselves to me and ran about. I had a million faces and names to remember. The best part was looking at the little doll of a face she had and see her breathing on her own. So many people explained so many different things, but no one told me everything that was wrong and when/who/what/where/and how everything was going to be fixed. It was day one I learned my first lesson of being an intensive care mom...take everything one day at a time. Doctors don't always have all of the answers and that a lot of test and procedures take days to answer. The room was quit with one doctor by Laura's bedside examining her, when one of her machines start to beep. I noticed her oxygen saturations (levels or oxygen) started to drop drastically. I notice the doctor start to panic and reach for a BVM (a breathing device) and start to bag her, and yelled out for some help. He reached up and pressed the code button and within minutes, doctors and nurses rushed into her tiny ICU room. I heard someone yell out begin compressions. My heart sank and I felt tears begin to instantly fill my eyes. I thought to myself, "don't cry, your her mother, you need to be strong for her." A nurse helped me out to the hallway and let me watch over it all. She explained everything step by step in complete detail and held my hand and would gave me a play by play update of what was going on. Children's really does a phenomenal job at including the parents. The toughest part was watching them intubate Laura. Being an EMT, I have practiced intubating infant manikans. But nothing prepares you for the sight of your daugther being intubated. Knowing that she is in respiratory failure and her life counts on the person holding that larygnoscope. Laura was quickly intubated and a chest tube was placed on her right side due to a spontaneous pneumonthorax (pocket of air in part of the lungs it shouldn't be) she had developed while having a a test done in radiology. Once the breathing tube and chest tube in, Laura's color instantly came up to a nice pink color and the commotion died down. Larua's first down in the CICU, on of many, unfortunately, I must prepare myself for.

July 9th, 2010

2nd day in the CICU, and Laura was already giving them a run for their money. Her sats were constantly dropping and rising, but the good thing, no significant drops. Just a lot of repositioning her and trying different things. I only got to visit quickly this day, Laura had a bunch of places to go and test to do. Two days old and already a busy little bee. However, one of the biggest most memorable moments about this night was when I was all by myself in the room with Laura, I started talking to her. She started to bat her eyes and try to open them as I got glimpse of the white part of her eye. I kept talking to her even more and then she opened her eye all the way and looked at me with her gorgeous eyes. She closed her eyes after that. What melted my heart was knowing that she recognized her mommy's voice. She looked at me and I looked at her and felt that feeling of love just make my night.

July 10, 2010

Today I was discharged from Brigham and Women's hospital. The day started off in a good mood and I was beyond thrilled to get to see my little princess again. When I got to her room, I found out they had decided to keep her heavily sedated so her body can rest up for her first big open heart surgery. The doctor informed me that the surgeons were planning on operating at the beginning of the week and that they would be in more over the next few days and would meet with me and explain their goal. The doctor explained that her first open heart surgery would fix her coarctation of the aorta. Then once she got a little bigger, any where from 2 months to 6 months, they would fix the atrioventricular canal defect. Throughout the day, I kept getting overwhelmed with all of the surgeries and the long road of recovery she has a head of her. Now, I have come to conclusion that I need to take everything one day at a time and that is all I can do. Pray and hope for my little Laura and let everything fall into place from there, Laura also had more of the de-sats today so they decided to switch Laura over to nitrous oxide, which should help with her breathing. When I left for the night, Laura was doing well, keeping her sats up. Ultrasound came in and did an ultrasound on Laura's head to rule out any brain bleeds. Tomorrow more surgeons will be in the room th talk to me and examine Laura for surgery. So tomorrow I will update any information about surgeries and how the results came back.

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