*There will be pictures of a premature infant in this post* I want to post a TRIGGER WARNING that this post, and the subsequent parts will detail hospital/medical bias, medical procedures, the NICU, and other subjects that might be triggering for some. There will also be pictures of premature infants which (from personal experience) can be triggering. I will post this at the beginning of each part.
The next morning I was at the NICU bright and early. I sat with the baby. She had the same day nurse as the previous day when the breastmilk fiasco went down. As the nurse got the feeding ready I asked her what was in the bottle. She replied, "It's breastmilk. I'm not sure why the doctor told you they would give her formula, especially when you're so against it." She was the one who told me that, but I held my tongue, and just shrugged. I stayed most of the day, and well into the night.
My baby was almost three weeks old by now. I was a steady presence in the NICU. I usually sat quietly with the baby on my chest, and read or browsed social media. I guess I started to blend in too well because some staff members started saying things in front of me that should not be heard by any patients. One of the things I remember that rubbed me the wrong way was a nurse frustrated at being locked out of the computer because she could not input the breastmilk she had just received. She told another nurse, "This wouldn't happen if they would just get on formula." Mind you the only two babies on breastmilk were micropreemies who breastmilk is mandatory for at other hospitals. My confidence in these nurses was already on shaky ground. I just held my breath and willed my baby to get better faster so I could take her home.
As the days passed by the baby got bigger, and bigger. At a little less than a month Earthside they tried weaning her off oxygen. She managed to go a few hours without oxygen before needing to get back on it. It was amazing to see her beautiful face without the tape and wires. Around this same time she gained enough weight to start wearing clothes. The nurses who knew me very well by then waited for me to arrive to put her first outfit on her. Because it was December I put her in a Santa Clause onesie.
Her trial without oxygen lasted about eight hours before it needed to be put back on. They told me that was to be expected, but that she had done well. The baby continued to gain weight and grow each day. Eventually she was she was big enough, and stable enough to leave her pod. She officially upgraded to an open crib, and was moved to the other side with the "bigger" NICU babies. There was currently one other baby over there with her. The best part of the open crib is that I no longer needed assistance to get her out of bed to hold. It was bittersweet to be so far away from her friend, but I was looking forward to hopefully having her home before Christmas.
