What happened-Monday Feb 8th

I was reading back through my blog yesterday and realized that I didn’t write about what happened in between being nervous about Chris going back to work and Aidan passing.  I want to write about it before I forget.

Monday, February 8th Chris went back to work. My mom and I had planned on going to the NICU at noon for Aidan’s hands on time. I called around 8:30 in the morning to check on him and I had been put on hold for awhile. I thought it was a little weird, but assumed his nurse was doing hands on still. Dr. H picked up the phone and my heart sank.  He told us that Aidan’s jaundice was going back up and he needed us to get to the NICU as soon as possible.  I texted Chris 911 and then called him to tell him to get to the hospital right away. He had been at work for an hour.

I called Chris’s dad to let him know that we were on the way to the hospital. When we got there Dr. H told us that in a full term baby if the jaundice level gets up to 30 they get concerned about brain damage. They don’t know what the magic number is for preemies, but assume that’s much lower than 30. Aidan’s number was 14. He wanted to talk to us about doing a possible blood transfusion. They would take all of Aidan’s blood out that was jaundice and put in fresh blood. It would have been a very risky procedure and wouldn’t guarantee that Aidan would make it.  Our minds were swirling and Dr. H could tell so he said that he would give Aidan a shot of something, put him back under the bili lights and wait to see if that would help. He said that if it went up to 16 that we would need to decide what we were going to do. It was starting to become clear that the end was coming. I asked if we’d be able to hold him and was told that we could later in the day. We called all of our family members to come to the hospital because we needed them so much.

About an hour or two later they tested Aidan’s jaundice level again and it had risen to 16. Chris and I had no idea what we were going to do so once again Dr. H came up with an idea. He told us that they would take Aidan to get another ct scan to find out the extent of brain damage the bleed caused. I cried, begged and pleaded for God to bring Aidan back to me alive after the scan. I needed to have Aidan back, I needed him to be with his mommy and daddy if he wasn’t going to make it in the next few hours. I HAD to be able to hold him.  While he was down getting the scan we went back to the waiting room where everyone was hanging out.

I ended up taking a short nap because I was in such shock. I woke up to find out that my shirt was wet because I had leaked. It had been about 6 hours since I had last pumped and I left all of my supplies at home.  The nurses gave me another set of supplies and were shocked at how quickly I filled the bottles.

Amber, Aidan’s nurse came out to get us because he was back from the scan.  Chris and I ran back to his room to see him. Then we had to wait on Dr. O, the neonatologist to take a look at his scans. We had to wait about 6 hours.  My parents had gone home, but Chris’s stayed with us. We were finally able to hold Aidan. It was unbelievably bittersweet because we knew that the only reason we were able to hold him is because he was most likely not going to make it. I sat down on the recliner and waited for Amber and the RT to get Aidan ready to be moved. He was finally in my arms! 

I sat there rocking him very carefully so the ventilator wouldn’t budge. I talked to him, kissed his little head and sang to him. I loved feeling his body against mine and I was so happy. I cried a lot too, but I told him they were happy tears.  My back was so sore from the surgery, recovery, stress and my lack of resting so I wasn’t able to hold Aidan for very long. Once I was done Chris got a turn to hold him.  I can’t describe the amount of love that I felt when I saw my whole world sitting in that chair.  I won’t pretend to know what Chris was feeling or saying while he held Aidan. I let him have his space with his son.

Chris’s parents were in the room with us and got some family pictures as well. Once we were done holding Aidan he was put back into his isolate. The whole time we were holding him his numbers were great and that really helped us a lot.  At this point we weren’t even considering the transfusion because we were waiting to hear what Dr. O would say. 

Everyone but Chris’s parents had left and came back after they got off work. Chris went downstairs to get something to eat with his parents because he hadn’t eaten all day. At that point food was our very last priority.  I ended up staying in Aidan’s room and taking another short nap.  I couldn’t hold him or touch him so the only thing I could do was sleep. 

I’ll continue the rest of the story tomorrow.

I love you Aidan Christopher!

Maggs