Kate's NICU Story

Kate's NICU story is featured on the Miracle Bash Blog today. We have always been big supporters of the NICU but after our experience we have really tried to support in any way we can. The Melissa George Neonatal Fund does and amazing job of raising money for the NICU. You can read all about the bash and the swim they do each year on the blog link above. I am so glad we were able to share our story leading up to the big events this year. You can also read some other amazing stories about the work the HH NICU does with babies on the blog. (I am including the story here as well so I can have it for the blog book but check out the link as well).

Kate was born at 37 weeks and 2 days gestation. I had a very uneventful pregnancy and when I went into labor at 37 weeks it was not a big deal. I remember asking my doctor if it was going to be ok that Kate was being born a little early. He said that the likelihood of problems at this point were very small and that there could be bigger complications if we tried to delay her birth. So Kate was born at 2:16 am on November 16, 2009. She was 7 pounds 1 oz and was 19 inches long. Perfect we thought! She came out screaming. That was very different than our son so I felt relief that everything was ok. About 2 minutes after she was born we began to realize that everything was not ok. She began grunting and struggling to breathe. They immediately called the NICU team and they assessed her to have acute respiratory distress. They took her straight down to the NICU. It was such an emotional roller coaster. She looked so good one minute and the next minute she was being taken away from us. I think one of the hardest things was giving up our expectation of how things were going to be. We expected to have a healthy little girl that would could take home in 2 days. We expected to have a new baby sister we could introduce to her big brother just after she was born. We did not expect to have a very sick baby.

Kate continued to struggle over the next 72 hours. She spent 2 days on a ventilator. The nurses and doctors had warned us that she would get worse before she would get better and she did. It was so very hard to watch her struggle just to breathe. On day 4 she turned the corner and began to improve. We were finally able to hold her and begin to know that she was going to be alright. One of the things that made us smile was how big she looked next to all of the tiny babies all around her. She spent a total of 6 days in the NICU. When we first were able to see Kate in the NICU our first thoughts were how amazing it was. Both Matt and I have worked in hospitals and NICUs in several states. It was a totally different experience being the parent. We had to let go of our training and knowledge and let the amazing nurses and doctors work. It was hard for us at times but we were blown away by the staff that were taking care of her. They were so compassionate and caring yet so knowledgeable. One of our favorite memories was walking in one morning and seeing a little pink bow in her hair!! We knew she was in great hands.

Kate is now a very healthy 20 months old. She has the spunkiest personality. She loves to dress up, wear jewelry and play with her dolls. To say she keeps us on our toes would be and understatement.

Our NICU story is not as long or as full of as many ups and downs as a lot of other peoples. But to us it was a very long and scary 6 days. We feel so blessed to have had the HH NICU in the very unexpected situation we were placed.