Leah is 4 weeks old today, I just can't believe it! I can see that she already looks different than she did when she was born. She is more alert each day, and she's starting to get more strength in her neck... all that tummy time is paying off! I think she's also getting cuter every day.
It's hard to believe that we've actually spent over 1/4 of her life in the hospital. I thought I'd share a little bit about what our life was like while we were there. Leah was born at Abbott Northwestern Hospital and then was taken to Children's Hospital, which is connected through an underground tunnel, about the length of 3 city blocks. We got very familiar with that tunnel, I think Ty walked back and forth 5-6 times a day while I was still there. I was in for 3 days, and was taken in a wheelchair back and forth. Once I was able to start feeding her, I was going back and forth between the 2 hospitals... to Abbott for pain medicine, to Children's to feed, back to get more meds, again for another feeding. It was nice to finally be discharged so I could stay at Children's all day.
Leah spent her first week in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which is for babies who are premature or have other health problems when they are born. Once a baby leaves the NICU, they won't come back to that unit, as it needs to be as sterile as possible. Each nurse takes care of only 2 babies at a time. When we came back to the hospital for her shunt surgery, she had to go to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). Even though she was a tiny baby, she had gone home and couldn't go back to the NICU. Like the NICU, the PICU also was a ratio of 2 children per nurse, so all the patients get a lot of attention. She then went into the Infant Care Center (ICC), which is the step-down unit for babies under 1. Most babies come to the ICC from the NICU, but they also get babies like Leah, who had surgery. All the units - NICU, PICU, ICC - have private rooms, and each room has a rocking chair and futon that pulls out into a bed so parents can room-in with their babies... like I did when Leah was in the PICU. All the units are also secure and we had to be buzzed in. They also kept a record of all the visitors who came into her room.
One thing that is very special about Children's Hospital is that they have a Ronald McDonald House in the hospital. It is on the same floor as the NICU and ICC. Normal Ronald McDonald Houses are off-site and only families who live out of town can stay overnight there. But this one has 16 private rooms for families of children in the NICU, ICC and PICU only. It also is not a long-term stay facility, and families get on a waiting list based on need. We were very fortunate to be able to have a room there each night Leah was in the hospital, both when she was born and when she came back for surgery. When she was in the NICU after being born, the nurse called me during the night when she was ready to eat, so I could walk down the hall to feed her. Even though her room had a pull-out sofa, it would not have been an overly comfortable place to sleep there every night. It was great for Ty too, that he could be at the hospital with Leah and I... even though we live fairly close, he didn't have to drive back and forth every day.
The Ronald McDonald House has a very large kitchen and seating area where families could come and hang out, even if they weren't staying overnight. Most nights they had volunteers come and cook dinner. Volunteers also donated food for the stocked pantry - cereal, granola bars, boxes of pasta - so we never had to worry about when and where our next meal would be.
Life in the hospital is certainly not like life at home, but our experience was as close to home as it could be. Leah had amazing nurses in all the units, and we couldn't be more impressed with everyone there. If there has to be an upside to all the time we spent there, it did help her sleep habits. She has her days and nights right, so she's up more during the daytime and falls right back to sleep at night after a feeding. She also sleeps in her crib and has never objected to being there.
I know I'll never forget our time there. It had a very distinctive smell of hand sanitizer and sterile-ness... I can still hear the beeps and dings of all the machines... I'll always be able to visualize the pattern on the couch and curtains and the paint color on the wall... those sights and sounds and smells will be with me always. But I also will never forget the kindness of everyone and the feeling that we were well taken care of.
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