Well, we were discharged from the hospital at 9:40 am and we headed strait to Marshfield (where Nathaniel had flown to). We arrived there at the NICU around 11:40 am and finally got to hold him! It was wonderful, although short. He still had an IV in his head from the night before and they were not going to take that out because he was getting “sugar water” and an anti-biotic for the pneumonia (which the chest x-rays strongly suggested he had). But it was great to finally hold him close and snuggle a bit with him. But far to soon for me, we had to leave him because they were putting him on an EEG machine to record his brain waves. With the possibility of him having a seizure Friday night, they wanted to make sure that things were okay and they wanted to know what was going on. Unfortunately, within 3 hours of him getting on the EEG, 5 seizures were recorded. They are not big seizures, meaning there is very little movement, and sometimes none at all, when he has them. They are deducting that what has happened is that at some point within the last few days, he passed his first bowel movement (the doctor said that the meconium was passed probably due to stress on him. And I think that 55 hours of continual contractions would put stress on him!). Then the umbilical cord was pinched some how and that cut off his oxygen. He then gasped to take a breathe and aspirated the meconium into his lungs. This then caused a lack of oxygen to his brain, which in turn began to cause swelling. And these seizures are a result of the swelling on his brain. This is all conjecture, of course. There is no way for anyone to know exactly what happened to cause these seizures. All we do know right now is that there is meconium in his lungs, there is swelling on his brain and he is having seizures.
The length of the seizures are not necessarily an indication of how severe this condition really is. For the most part, the seizures have been 1-3 minutes long. But even those times are speculation simply because of his little to no movement, they only have the EEG machine to count from. Usually, they count how long someone has a seizure from the beginning of movement to the end of that movement. With him, there is no definite movement, and the machine also records residual movements of the brain, so the exact length of these seizures are not really known. But because he did have any type of seizures on Saturday, and all day too, the doctor put him on two continual anti-seizure medications. With “stuff” being in his lungs, he has been breathing much faster than he normally should. These anti-seizure medications act like a seditive and so now his breathing is slower then it was (still a bit to fast for a “normal” newborn, though). This is good in that it is giving his body some relief from having to breathe so fast for so long. There were no signs of seizure activity through Saturday night, but an MRI will still be performed on Monday and we will have a better understanding of what is going on. He did have an ultrosound done on his brain and that showed no bleeding or sists, praise God for that! But an MRI will show more clearly what his brain is doing and how it has been effected.
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It’s now Sunday night and things looked really good today. While the anti-seizure medications are still being given to him (one every 8 hours and the other every 12 hours), there has been no seizure activity today (that we are sure of anyway. And it is now about 10:40 pm.). We don’t know when the MRI will be done tomorrow, but it will be done. Adam’s work said that his shift is covered, so he did not go home today as we thought he would have to. Another answer to prayer! We are hoping that the MRI is done soon enough tomorrow that he will still be here when we get the results back. The doctor said it takes about 3 hours to get the results, so if the test is done early enough in the day, we won’t have to wait until Tuesday. That’s the idea, anyway. And I really don’t want to be alone when we get the results back. If we have to wait until Tuesday, then I will try and see if they would be willing to call Adam, put him on speaker phone and essentially, tell us the results at the same time. That way, he can ask questions and I don’t have to worry about remembering everything they say.
Nathaniel’s breathing stayed much better today, as well. That could be because of a number of things: like the anti-biotic is working, his lungs are clearing up and the anti-seizure medication is making him so sedated, that it is slowing down his breathing. Either way, he is looking better today.
Adam and I are staying in the Ronald McDonald House for the remainder of our (my) stay. I have never been here at one of these places before, only heard about them. And let me tell you, they are such a blessing! There is food provided for you, dishes and pans to cook with, linens, towels, washer/dryer (soap included!), a game room, a family room to go in with small children…the list goes on and on. Not only that, but the surrounding businesses donate food for supper on the weekdays. All this for $5 a night! No joke! (you can pay when you are going home) If you have ever wanted to know of a place where you could donate something to and be sure you were helping others, this would be a great place to donate too. When you are here for something like this, the last thing you need is to worry about how are you going to pay for a hotel room, eating, parking (we are right across the street from the hospital), or doing laundry.
You know, you can’t help but think about how awesome our God is when you experience trauma like this. I prayed and prayed that my water would break. But God new that would not have been a good thing. Nathaniel was born not 30 minutes after it was broken. And we live 40 minutes away. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if he had been born any other place then in the hospital. God knew all this and He protected us. Just as He is protecting Nathaniel now, with the nurses and the facility here to help him. With the doctors here that can learn what is going on with him. With Ronald McDonald House here where Adam and I can stay with out worrying about silly things like “where can we do our laundry?”.
God has a plan and it doesn’t matter if we understand what that plan is or not. In fact, don’t even try. You will never “get it”. Just trust Him. That’s a hard thing to do, I know. Trust me, I know. But do it anyway. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring or even what will come in the next hour. If you did, could you really change anything? But He does know. Rest in that fact. Trust in that fact. And He will give you peace that passes all understanding.