Wednesday, February 28, 2018

THE NICU


We left the hospital the first night happy and hopeful. Little Henry was breathing on his own and had started bottle feeding. He showed no signs of drug withdrawal. The NICU was talking about sending him to a step down unit.

The next morning we arrived to the hospital to find Henry had been transferred to the stepdown unit but he had started withdrawing from the opiates his birthmother used during her pregnancy. Henry was vomiting and was trembling. The neonatologist started him on methadone. Methadone is a drug used to treat opiate withdrawals. He had to have a nasogastric (NG) tube placed because he couldn't take a bottle due to being so jittery. They also started him on bili-lights due to his bilirubin level being high. Henry was transferred back up to the NICU.



Henry spent 13 days on methadone and 17 days total in NICU. We went everyday and spent time with Henry. We met and reconnected with friends who worked in the NICU during that time. More than not, either Hazel or I knew the nurse who was taking care of Henry on each shift. It made a stressful time more bearable. From the beginning, the nurses referred to us as Henry's parents.....we were parents!

While Henry was hospitalized, we had lots of legalities to complete. Henry's birthmother signed her rights away the evening before she delivered Henry. That aspect made parts of the legal process easier, but since Henry delivered on a Friday and it happened to be the Friday before Labor Day, we could not get a court date for emergency guardianship. However, the skies aligned and we went before the judge on September 11, 2017 and were granted a 90 day guardianship. I had never been in a real courtroom before and have only seen the court clerks typing into the little typewriter machine, so I wasn't expecting the 'scuba mask' contraption the clerk had on. If you know me, you know that I have inappropriate laughter. I almost burst into laughter when I saw her. I so wished someone had told me what to expect in the courtroom before we walked in. 

We waited until we were granted guardianship before we told everyone about Henry. That included our fathers. We wanted so much for the timing of everything to be right before we said anything. As is the culture now, we announced our adoption on Facebook.


Henry was a little fighter and he made progress everyday. He gained weight, he ate more from his bottle and he was able to wean from the methadone consistently. 




Henry was moved to the step down unit on a Friday afternoon. We brought him home on Sunday, September 17, 2017. He progressed through his NICU stay like a little champion. It was tough on us both mentally and physically but we would do it over again. Henry Maxwell Lednick-Hayes was well worth everything we went through and he is fiercely loved.




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