Our Hospital Stay: Part 1

I had the most absolute wonderful hospital care.  Nolan and I were truly blessed.  Nolan was born on a Wednesday and we stayed our full days in the hospital and left Sunday.  My nurses were very amazing and as J said, if I had my way, I'd still be in the hospital.  Except the food.  I hated the food.

Friday, I woke up feeling as amazing as one does after having a C section.  J had gone home the night befoer to sleep and I sent Nolan down to the nursery for the night.  Since I was bottle feeding, I could get some sleep and not be disturbed.  I told my night nurse, Cleta, to just let me sleep and not wake me up for meds.  I fed Nolan around 11pm and let her take him to the nursery.  I have to say, it was so weird having him alone to myself for a few hours!

I woke up aorund 7am and took a shower,own my own this time.  Put on makeup and braided my hair before I walked down to the nursery to pick up my baby.  I figured the more I could walk around the better. Nolan had had a good night and I was so happy to see him.  My parents and J arrived after 10am. We were all in very good spirits.  The pediatrician and her team did rounds and came into our room around 11am. Nolan was doing well health wise.  However, she asked if we could talk freely in the room. My parents asked if they needed to leave and everyone looked at me. It was at this moment I knew something bad was about to happen and I shut down.  I did not want my parents to leave the room and they did not.

Nolan is a tongue thruster.  I guess this is not a good thing.  I seriously thought his tongue going in and out of his mouth was super cute.  However, it can be a sign of down syndrome.  What?  Did they just say down syndrome?  I was so confused.  Nolan did not have any of the facial features of a downs baby.  But he did have 2 other signs.  When you cup your hand, there are usually 2 predominate creases you see in your hand. One of Nolan's hands only has one.  This alone does not mean downs, in fact one of the rounding doctors only has one crease (and our actual pediatrician only has one too.)  He also apparently had extra fat on the back of his neck.   In a minute, my elation of being a mom was drained.  I went from a huge high to a huge low.   Now do not get me wrong, my love for Nolan did not waiver.  In a split second, all of my hopes and dreams for his future, changed.

Jay and I decided on the spot to have the blood work done to do the karyotyping.  The sucky part was it was Friday and the test takes a couple of days and I was pretty sure they did not do any testing over the weekend.  No matter what the out come was, we were going to love this baby, surround him with the most loving and caring people, and provide him with the best care possible.  We wanted the test done because if Nolan was a downs baby we wanted to be prepared and find him the right doctors and be able to best prepare.  The pediatrician asked why we didn't have test run in utero.  To be honest, the anatomical scan showed no reason to test further and it didn't matter, we were going to have this baby regardless.

J and I are blessed with the most amazing church family.  My mother in law called our church and let our pastor know what was gong on.  She came up that afternoon with a balloon and Nolan's first Gund bunny rabbit.  We prayed as a room for the health of Nolan and to give us strength to face what was in our path.  Two members of our small group also came up and sat with me and cried with me.  Once they came into the room and held Nolan, I knew that things were going to be fine.  J and I have been truly blessed to have a church friends that are seriously our family.  We did not talk about this with many people but I know our entire small group was praying for us and with us.

My nurse, Heather, was also instrumental in comforting me. She told me over and over that she did not believe that Nolan had it.  She polled all the nurses working and the consensus was he was normal.  Needless, I didn't sleep as well Friday night, even with Nolan in the nursery.  He was doing much better taking more volume when he ate and I was so honed in on his tongue coming in and out of his mouth.  I think for the next few days that is all I could see.