Treading Water: Della's Birth Story and 13 Days That Changed Our Lives Forever
PART 2 TW Infant Medical content. If you're expecting a baby, recently post-partum, or sensitive to strong imagery in the birth space please skip this post.
Over the next few days I cherished the time we had at the hospital. We were getting to the point where I would need to be discharged and little Della would need to stay in the NICU. So I spent as much time as possible with her, willing myself to be recovered. My prenatal chiropractor, Dr. Emily, came to visit us on day 3 and I didn’t realize how much I needed her positivity and comforting smile. I had seen Dr. Emily every week of my pregnancy since week 16 and when she came to my room and saw me hop out of bed she was shell shocked. I had briefly explained Della’s situation to her but I don’t think she knew how determined I was to get back to 100%.
One of my favorite memories during these days was the night schedule, pumping every 2.5 hours along with the walk to the NICU to drop off the milk.. I cherished these moments. It was different at night than it was during the day. Daytime NICU visits were all about forward progress and how she’s healing. Nighttime NICU visits were very present. The hospital was quiet, things seemed slower. It felt like it was just Della and I in a bubble and I truly loved it.
There was one moment when I walked into the room and started talking next to Della’s bed and she turned her little head toward my voice. One of the nurses commented “Oh look, she hears her mama” and for 3 straight days every time I thought about that comment I SOBBED happy tears. I had been struggling with thinking that maybe she wouldn’t know who I was since I hadn’t even had a chance to hold her yet or do any skin to skin. So hearing acknowledgment that she DOES know who I am from an expert really helped put some of those worries to rest.
Speaking of nurses… everyone knows NICU nurses are best of the best, living angels on this earth, but what I experienced in the NICU would put most corporate offices to fucking SHAME. These women are highly skilled, incredibly detail oriented, observant, proactive, and fucking ruthless when they need to be. Nobody comes between a NICU nurse and the babies in their care, not even the Neonatologist lol I have so much love for these women. They kept my baby afloat when the waves threatened to take her under, they held me together when I needed it. They put so much care into every waking moment they spent on shift and it was humbling to be in their presence.
On day 4 we met Dr. Rubner, and he was the primary neonatologist we worked with throughout Della’s stay. Dr. Rubner was very determined to get Della’s chest tube out. The way he described it, the longer she had that chest tube, the more they risked an infection. And that its typical is for babies to get their chest tubes out on days 5-7, after day 7 if she still needs a chest tube it would start to be considered “out of normal range”. Dr. Rubner described the likelihood of chest tube removal over time as a bell curve and me being a statistician, I instantly recognized the type of analysis he was describing as a standard normal distribution where I assumed a 1.96 t-stat, 0.05 p-value, and a 95% confidence interval. That comment from him made me feel a lot better (until we started approaching statistical outlier territory..).
After passing all her tests and X-rays, on Day 5 Della was able to get her chest tube out! And finally, we got to hold her for the first time.
It was so surreal, her tiny body, still wrapped in wires and still needing heavy oxygen support, laying comfortably in my arms. Jake and I both did skin to skin, soaking up as much time with her this day as we possibly could. I got to nurse her for the first time and to my surprise she did great! I wasn’t sure what to expect considering she had been fed through a tube up until this point. That night we headed home to our older girls feeling so grateful and on cloud 9 with Della’s progress. After days of feeling like I couldn’t escape the darkness it started to seem like blue sky was peeking out and soon our baby would be able to feel the warm sun on her skin.
At 4:30 am Jake woke me up with a gentle hand “we missed a call from the NICU a few hours ago, let’s listen to the voicemail”. My stomach sank and panic rose in my chest. I don’t remember what the voicemail said, but I do remember Dr. Rubner’s voice and the first words we heard from him were “Della’s okay, but..”.
We called the NICU back immediately, and one of the nurses answered. She told us the doctors were currently working on Della and they could not come to the phone yet. Air had accumulated again in Della’s chest cavity, putting too much pressure on her heart, so in order to avoid a tension pneumothorax they had to act quickly in getting another chest tube in place.
I couldn't breathe. I was warned the NICU would be a rollercoaster ride, but to go from nursing my baby for the first time just hours ago, back to the beginning with another collapsed lung, put me in a spiral of fear and panic. The sea I had been treading water in was pulling Della under and it felt as if I could lose her at any moment. For the first time, I started to really feel hopelessness take over. I was sitting in my darkened bedroom before dawn, listening to the rhythmic sound of the pump when my thoughts started to turn. What if her lung never healed? How long before I would be planning a funeral for my baby? How big would the coffin be for a 6lb newborn? … How would I survive that?