Once Megan was born, there was a team of people in my delivery room. Megan was immediately placed on a warming table and was examined. Then she was passed to me and I got to hold her for a few minutes. I said that I thought she looked like me. Dr. Hayes took our picture. Our first family portrait!
After I held her for a minute or two, Megan was placed in an incubator and Dave went with her as she was taken to the Special Care Nursery - Level 2. This picture is of Megan and Dave in the Special Care Nursery just 45 minutes after she was born. (Note the clock in the background says 2:15) The incubator helps babies to maintain their body temperature.
Megan was also a bit jaundiced. We were told that most babies are jaundiced to some degree, and because Megan was 6 weeks premature, this was almost expected. She also had quite a bruise on the top of her head from being born. One nurse said that this also contributed to the jaundice. She did not have to go under the light therapy and it went away on it's own.
I remained in the labour and delivery room for 3 more hours. Dave came back to check on me several times. I was given lunch and received many visitors. The nurses encouraged me and helped me to get up to go to the bathroom. They also tried to help me into the shower, but it turned out that I became quite dizzy and was not up to that. I was given a sponge bath in bed instead. By that time, Dave had come back to check on me again and helped. At 4:30 I was moved to a recovery room on the mother & babe unit. On the way there, the nurse took me into the nursery to see Megan. It was very emotional seeing her there. Although I could have reached into the holes to touch her, I didn't. It was all a bit overwhelming. Also, I didn't feel like I had the strength to stand up out of the wheelchair. Once in the mother & babe unit, I could hear the cries of the babies that were rooming in with their mothers in the adjacent rooms. I missed this experience, but I got some much needed rest.
Megan only stayed in the incubator for a few hours and she was out of it that evening. She was still hooked up to the wires that monitored her breathing and heart rate, but soon the nurses decided that these wires could also come off. Megan was doing great! She was soon moved to SCN - Level 1. Here she is getting her first bath from the SCN nurse. The nurse was showing Dave and I how to do it.
Megan was fed every 3 hours at first. She was fed via a tube (called gavage feeding) for the first few times. For a short while, this was done via a tube down her nose, but then they took that out and just put one in down her mouth whenever they needed to. I liked this better, as I did not like to see the tube taped to her nose and face. In fact, after the first few times, I would leave when the nurses would gavage feed her because I realized that did not like to see it.
It was impossible for me to be there for every single feeding session. When I was there, we would sometimes try breastfeeding, depending on how awake she was. These were more 'practice' breastfeeding sessions, as Megan was not strong enough to actually do it successfully. The nurses asked me to try it for only about 10 minutes at a time so I didn't tire her out. Then, depending on how tired she was, we would either try to bottle-feed her, or feed her via tube. She was very slow to eat with the bottle at first. Feeding sessions were supposed to only last one hour at the most, and were very busy times. By the time I got there, changed her diaper, took her temperature, spoke with the nurses, tried to breastfeed, then gave her the bottle and/or a tube feeding, the hour was up. The nurses encouraged us to put her back to bed after one hour so that she could get the maximum rest in order to prevent her from being tired at the next feeding. This left little time for cuddling, and I hated that I didn't get to actually spend time with Megan. The whole time we were there, we were on a mission to feed her as much as possible as quickly as possible in the hopes that we would still have time left to cuddle her and bond with her. Also, Megan received many visitors during the feeding times (because visitors were only allowed to be there when Dave or I were there), so there were times when Dave and I did not get to hold her much at all. We were allowed to bring in 2 people at a time to see Megan in the SCN, and more if we were in the family room during feeding times.
The nurses also warned us (scared us?) many times that infection was a major concern, and that we should not let too many people handle her. We were advised not to take her out much once we brought her home. We were told about babies who are released from the hospital and then come back a few weeks later with respiratory infections. Some of these babies are flown to Children's Hospital in Vancouver.
On Friday March 25 I was discharged from the Hospital. Dave came to pick me up. It was a very strange feeling for us to leave the hospital without Megan. Once we got home, it seemed already as though someone was missing, even though Megan had never been in the house yet. I spent the following days going back and forth to the hospital for as many feedings in the day as I could. Dave was able to come while he was off work for a few days. He went back to work the following Wednesday. Karen took this picture in the 'family room' at the hospital.
This was Megan's bed in the Special Care Nursery - Level 1.
You can see that she is a bit jaundiced in this picture.
Eventually Megan's feedings moved from every 3 hours to every 4 hours. Then it was changed so that she was only fed when she was hungry (but not longer than 4 hours). I was happy when this happened, as I knew that we were getting closer to going home, but this was hard because I did not know when I should come to the hospital. I spent some time there just reading by her bedside waiting for her to wake.
Finally on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 5th, we were able to bring Megan home with us! She was exactly 2 weeks old!