Hospital Stay

Okay, so par for the course our hospital stay with Brighton wasn't usual either!! The night she was born she was put in NICU because she had fluid in her lungs. This was causing her heart rate to hit over 200 BPM, and respirations got above 80 per minute. So, she was put in NICU so she could be watched closely. They did a chest x-ray, ran blood work, and took a culture of the fluid in her lungs. The doctor was pretty sure it was residual fluid from being born by c-section, but they need to make sure it wasn't an infection. This culture took 48 hours to get back, so she was started an antibiotics and was to be kept in NICU until the results were back.

This was really hard for us because we were really only able to hold her every 3 hours during feeding times. We could go see her anytime we wanted, but the nurses wanted her to have "down time" to keep her nice and relaxed. Not to mention we had grandparents and aunts that wanted to see her and hold her too!! In NICU we were only allowed to have 4 additional people on the list, so we had to keep rotating people thru! That was a struggle for us to do, but I think everyone had "equal" time!

On Thursday (the 14th) we found out that they were taking Brighton off the IV and that she had completed her antibiotics. When were were there for the 12 noon feeding they said we were going to get to take her to our room that afternoon!!! YAY!! We were so excited! Technically the culture wouldn't be back until about 1:30am that coming morning, but they were pretty sure it would be clear since nothing was growing on it to that point. So needless to say, we were very excited! Finally our baby girl was going to be with us!

Brighton stayed in our room Thursday night - that was stressful to a new mommy! I think I slept about 30 minutes! Every little sound she made caught my attention - and so the worrying began! Then on Friday we were told that we were able to go home! She had a final check up with the NICU doctor, and everything came back just fine! So, in a matter on minutes we were packing up our stuff, taking the "hospital" pictures, and heading out the door! That happened sooo fast! But, the important thing was that we were on our way home with our baby girl!!

The doctors and nurses at the Women's Center were awesome! They were very detailed with Brighton, and we knew she was in the best hands possible. Nothing was left un-checked, and every issue was followed up on! What an amazing staff!

So now we are at home, just turned 3 weeks old, and each day is a little different! Brighton is doing great on her schedule! She eats every 3 hours about 3oz-4oz, and sleeps at night from about 1am-6am. It is hard to wake her up from her naps when she is sleeping so well, but as soon as I let her sleep she would be off for the rest of the day! The routine has worked for our family, so hopefully it will help Brighton to sleep thru the night before we know it!