NICU

After Khalil arrival he had a difficult time regulating his body temperature. They requested that I do skin to skin again to increase his body temp which worked successfully. But a couple of hours later his temp had dropped again. His temp had to be between 97.8 and 100.4. Since his temp dropped again he had to be placed under the warmer for an hour. If his temperature dropped again he would have to go to the NICU. Unfortunately it dropped a second time. So around 5pm on Sunday evening, he was taken down to the NICU. I was so sad and shed a few tears. Going to the NICU meant he could not stay with me in my room, I couldn't hold him or feed him. He had to stay under the warmer for 24 hours on IV fluids. The only advice they had for us was to try and get plenty of rest. Yeah right! At 3:30 am I woke up and went downstairs to see him. He was lip smacking and sucking his fingers like crazy. My baby was hungry. I tried to soothe him by rubbing his back and singing. By 5am when the NICU closed he had finally gone back to sleep and I had to leave. We visited Khalil in the NICU as often as possible for about 2 hours at a time. When they took him out of the warmer we were able to feed him and hold him. He had to stay wrapped up at all times and his temp was checked every 3 hours before feedings. We were there on and off until around 10 pm each night. On Tuesday I was discharged but Khalil had to stay until Wednesday to finish his antibiotics. I did not leave Tuesday night until aroun 10:45pm. They said 11pm was the latest I could check out and I was going to stay as long as possible. When we got up Wednesday morning we headed back to the hospital for the 11:30am feeding. They said Khalil wouldn't be able to check out until 2pm. So we sat in the NICU with him until it was time to have consultation with the doctor. That didn't happen until 4pm. Nevertheless we arrived home around 5pm and have been living with our healthy baby since then. We do have to check his temp every day. But he has been doing well. One day his temp was 96. 5 and I had to help him raise it with warm blankets and skin to skin. We are praying that by his original due date he will have enough fat to control it forever. Stay tuned.