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It's been one week since you looked at me...
2005-07-07, 9:51 p.m.

Jack is one week old today.
All right, so I think I got through the whole story of just getting little Jack into the outside world in the last entry. After the surgery was over with they wrapped him up and put him in my arms to wheel me back into my hospital room. They were having some trouble with his blood sugar being too low that I had heard them talking about. Also, of course, there was some concern about whether or not I actually did have an infection coming on from the labor and whether or not he was at risk for sepsis. Also, though I don't remember if they had gotten to this yet or if it became a concern overnight, but his temperature was consistently a little low as well. The bottom line is that there were a handful of small concerns that came into the world with baby Jack that no one wanted to see turn into big problems if left untreated. Unfortunately, the hospital I was using was a low-risk facility, which basically meant that anything that was even as complicated as an I.V. for the baby, that they wouldn't do. Anyway, but seeing as how I couldn't even get out of bed at this point and also that Jack had a few things that needed to be monitored, they took him away and kept him in the nursery overnight.
First thing in the morning, I hear that his blood-sugar is still staying consistently low (just a tiny bit--anywhere between only 1 and 6 points below the normal range) and that his temperature hadn't quite stabilized. And still, there's the concern for infection for which they'd want to do blood cultures just to be sure he had no bacteria in his blood... Basically, all morning I'm hearing that there was a very real possibility that they were going to want to transport him to the NICU at Children's Hospital to take care of and monitor all of these things. And finally, the pediatrician had come to check him out and the decision was made and at only just barely 8 hours after his birth, they were taking my baby away to a whole other hospital for the next 2 days, at least. As fate would have it, the last blood-sugar that they took before leaving our hospital was finally within normal range, but that still left the other issues to be dealt with, so it didn't really matter.
So they took him away. In the big picture, it really was a mixed blessing because for those 2 days I was in no condition to be able to take care of him myself. Granted, they would have kept him in the nursery, most likely, but even still...
Well, his sugar levels stayed normal and they supplemented him also with a glucose I.V. as well as giving him I.V. antibiotics while they were waiting the 2 days for the results of the bacteria cultures to come back. Also, his temperature stabilized almost immediately. In general, he was the healthiest baby ever to be admitted to the NICU, it seemed, and also one of the largest (imagine 9 pound Jack in there next to all the preemies and sick little babies). The next day I got a "Day-Pass" from my doctor so that my husband could drive me over to visit him. My poor little baby was all hooked up to I.V.'s and monitors, but besides that he looked really great... Very healthy, which, by all accounts he seemed to be just that. In the end it all turned out to be just precautionary measures. He turned out just fine and we all got to go home together on the same day.
He is my little angel...

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