March 10, 2015

In the morning the nurses made me walk even though I still had a catheter. I called the health insurance  to get approval to transfer to the hospital  with the NICU. Was told I'd go about noon but it was about 3pm before I was in the ambulance, my mom following behind in my car.

Dr. V had told me that I could either stay there another night and then he'd release me on Wednesday  morning.  Or I could transfer and basically  just be there at the other hospital until Thursday  or Friday but that everything  looked good and I was out of the woods for getting pre-e after. He said my placenta looked normal but they'd run tests (which later turned out normal). I wanted to see my baby and decided to transfer, if I knew how shitty the birth area and doctors were I probably  wouldn't have.  It was like going from a spa to a prison. But I was only a wheel chair ride or walk away from C.

At 4:44pm on Tuesday March 10th, 26 hours after she was born I was able to see C. It was a nightmare, much worse than the pictures Scott had sent to be.  I hadn't slept, I was in pain, getting used to a crappy room and doctors compared from where I was,  couldn't hold my baby girl, and she had a million things connected to her.

She had to be cooled  for 72 hours, until the evening of Thursday the 12th. She had a breathing tube, feeding tube, iv, blood pressure monitor, thing down into her tummy to measure core body temperature  and relay that info to the cooling machine, and a few more monitors on her.

They said she had hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy also known as HIE. Which meant blood/oxygen wasn't getting to her brain and caused damage. Dr. S. told us not to Google and if we do to ask him because we will see scary things like about 50% of infants don't survive. Of those that do 25% have severe issues  and 25% are minor. At one point I clearly remember him saying she wouldn't be deaf or blind, she might have a limp or learning difficulties, the first time the doctor told us something that was incorrect.