Yep. You read that correctly. The day after Beckett was born, we ended up in the NICU...again. Thankfully, the whole situation was not as serious or terrifying as what we went through with Z (you can read about that here), thank God!
You may remember that I had to go through the one-hour glucose screen a second time at about 34 weeks, due to my "advanced" age (I was a few weeks from my 40th birthday), and the fact that I was expected to deliver a behemoth baby. My levels were slightly elevated (probably thanks to the peanut butter toast I had for breakfast - stupid idea!) and I had to undergo the horrible 3 hour fasting test the next week. This time, my numbers were practically hypoglycemic, which is actually pretty normal for me. No big surprise there, and the subject was immediately dropped. And then I ended up having a not-so-behemoth baby, at least by our standards.
Beck weighed in at 8lbs 14oz. Not tiny by any standard, but certainly not gigantic. Or so we thought. By the reactions of pretty much every single person we came into contact with, you would have thought he was the size of a Volkswagen. We thought it was ridiculous, but whatever - he still wore newborn size diapers...how big could he be? Anyway, because Beck was considered LGA - large for gestational age (which begins at 8lb 13oz, btw) - they began testing his blood sugar every two hours. Apparently there is a risk for hypoglycemia, though it was never really explained to us. You hear "blood sugar", you think diabetes. And because such a big deal was made about my possibly having gestational diabetes, which was such a joke, we just assumed that was what the problem was.
Well, we were moved to the Mother & Baby side of the maternity floor, and a nurse came in every couple of hours to check me out and to test Beck's blood sugar. Apparently, protocols had recently changed and we could never get a clear answer as to what the magic number was, but apparently, he never hit it. So, since they didn't administer IVs in the Well Baby nursery, Beck had to be moved to the NICU to get hooked into a bag of dextrose to help regulate his sugar levels. Thankfully, the NICU was just down the hall, but the neonatologist was a super douche about the whole thing. He never really explained anything, just said "If you don't let us admit him, your baby could have BRAIN DAMAGE" and left us. We pretty much had no choice. I was still in my hormonal daze and we were both exhausted. Our brains were spinning and all of our previous NICU baggage came back to the surface. We just wanted to be lazy and enjoy our time with our new baby before we returned to the chaos of home. No such luck. At that point, that douchey doctor could have said just about anything and we would have gone along with it.
Within the hour, Beck was moved and two sweet NICU nurses hooked up his IV and all the monitors. Damon was quietly freaking out. I tried to keep it positive. We were told it would just be overnight. I could pop in to nurse and snuggle whenever I wanted and then we'd have him back the following evening. Except that it never really worked out. Still not getting any clear answers, Beck's numbers would be great three draws in a row, and the fourth would be deemed too low, so they needed his numbers to read consistently high. But how high, we never knew. He was otherwise completely healthy. Showed no other symptoms, whatever those were. Someone decided that they needed to supplement with formula and (we are certain) he was overfed. All in the name of getting his numbers up. By day three, (yes. day. three.) they had weaned Beck off the dextrose, still supplemented my milk with formula, and although he was showing great numbers, we still had no info from that horrible doctor and no two nurses could give us the same answer. What had to happen for us to take him home?!
I had already been discharged with flying colors, Zoey was home with my mom and was slowly unravelling, and we were longing to bring our baby boy home. In our eyes, there was no reason for him to still be there. The only healthy baby in the NICU. And the word "hypoglycemia" was never uttered. We found out after we were all discharged, that Beck's numbers were fine for at least 36 hours. So what the hell were we still doing there? Well, it was the weekend. Were they waiting till Monday to discharge? Insane.
The nurse practitioner that was on duty on Sunday - Father's Day- told us Beck's numbers were fine and Damon would be getting his Father's Day wish. We were taking the kid home! I really think the weekend nurse who had been tending to Beck was pushing for us, too. Actually, all of the nurses were wonderful, just not clear on these new protocols.
Honestly, this post has been so hard to write, partly cuz I'm still pissed and partly cuz I still can't wrap my head around the whole thing. If Beck had weighed a few less ounces, would they have even checked his blood sugar in the first place? Was any of this even necessary? We will never know. I can tell you that Beck is perfect. He eats well, sleeps well, and poops...a lot. Basically the newborn hat trick. And Zoey, well, she's almost 3 ½, so she's a challenge from time to time, but she's totally in love with her baby.
You may remember that I had to go through the one-hour glucose screen a second time at about 34 weeks, due to my "advanced" age (I was a few weeks from my 40th birthday), and the fact that I was expected to deliver a behemoth baby. My levels were slightly elevated (probably thanks to the peanut butter toast I had for breakfast - stupid idea!) and I had to undergo the horrible 3 hour fasting test the next week. This time, my numbers were practically hypoglycemic, which is actually pretty normal for me. No big surprise there, and the subject was immediately dropped. And then I ended up having a not-so-behemoth baby, at least by our standards.
Beck weighed in at 8lbs 14oz. Not tiny by any standard, but certainly not gigantic. Or so we thought. By the reactions of pretty much every single person we came into contact with, you would have thought he was the size of a Volkswagen. We thought it was ridiculous, but whatever - he still wore newborn size diapers...how big could he be? Anyway, because Beck was considered LGA - large for gestational age (which begins at 8lb 13oz, btw) - they began testing his blood sugar every two hours. Apparently there is a risk for hypoglycemia, though it was never really explained to us. You hear "blood sugar", you think diabetes. And because such a big deal was made about my possibly having gestational diabetes, which was such a joke, we just assumed that was what the problem was.
Well, we were moved to the Mother & Baby side of the maternity floor, and a nurse came in every couple of hours to check me out and to test Beck's blood sugar. Apparently, protocols had recently changed and we could never get a clear answer as to what the magic number was, but apparently, he never hit it. So, since they didn't administer IVs in the Well Baby nursery, Beck had to be moved to the NICU to get hooked into a bag of dextrose to help regulate his sugar levels. Thankfully, the NICU was just down the hall, but the neonatologist was a super douche about the whole thing. He never really explained anything, just said "If you don't let us admit him, your baby could have BRAIN DAMAGE" and left us. We pretty much had no choice. I was still in my hormonal daze and we were both exhausted. Our brains were spinning and all of our previous NICU baggage came back to the surface. We just wanted to be lazy and enjoy our time with our new baby before we returned to the chaos of home. No such luck. At that point, that douchey doctor could have said just about anything and we would have gone along with it.
Within the hour, Beck was moved and two sweet NICU nurses hooked up his IV and all the monitors. Damon was quietly freaking out. I tried to keep it positive. We were told it would just be overnight. I could pop in to nurse and snuggle whenever I wanted and then we'd have him back the following evening. Except that it never really worked out. Still not getting any clear answers, Beck's numbers would be great three draws in a row, and the fourth would be deemed too low, so they needed his numbers to read consistently high. But how high, we never knew. He was otherwise completely healthy. Showed no other symptoms, whatever those were. Someone decided that they needed to supplement with formula and (we are certain) he was overfed. All in the name of getting his numbers up. By day three, (yes. day. three.) they had weaned Beck off the dextrose, still supplemented my milk with formula, and although he was showing great numbers, we still had no info from that horrible doctor and no two nurses could give us the same answer. What had to happen for us to take him home?!
I had already been discharged with flying colors, Zoey was home with my mom and was slowly unravelling, and we were longing to bring our baby boy home. In our eyes, there was no reason for him to still be there. The only healthy baby in the NICU. And the word "hypoglycemia" was never uttered. We found out after we were all discharged, that Beck's numbers were fine for at least 36 hours. So what the hell were we still doing there? Well, it was the weekend. Were they waiting till Monday to discharge? Insane.
The nurse practitioner that was on duty on Sunday - Father's Day- told us Beck's numbers were fine and Damon would be getting his Father's Day wish. We were taking the kid home! I really think the weekend nurse who had been tending to Beck was pushing for us, too. Actually, all of the nurses were wonderful, just not clear on these new protocols.
Honestly, this post has been so hard to write, partly cuz I'm still pissed and partly cuz I still can't wrap my head around the whole thing. If Beck had weighed a few less ounces, would they have even checked his blood sugar in the first place? Was any of this even necessary? We will never know. I can tell you that Beck is perfect. He eats well, sleeps well, and poops...a lot. Basically the newborn hat trick. And Zoey, well, she's almost 3 ½, so she's a challenge from time to time, but she's totally in love with her baby.
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