I slept in the next morning. I hadn’t slept well because there had been nurses coming and going every few hours to check on Sarah and give her meds and other fun things. Plus the couch was ridiculously uncomfortable to sleep on. Eventually I got up and decided that I wanted breakfast while we waited for the nurse to come take out Sarah’s catheter so we could go to the NICU. I wandered down to the cafeteria and ate and then wandered back upstairs. The nurse came in and told us that we could expect the catheter out within the next hour, but she wanted to see Sarah eat some food. Sarah wasn’t too hungry but she asked me what I wanted and ordered it, so I ended up with a second breakfast. The nurse came in after a while and took out the catheter. We were all set to go but the nurse didn’t like it that Sarah got a little pale and woozy when she pulled the catheter out so we had to wait another 30 minutes. Eventually we were allowed to go see our daughter. I pushed Sarah over in the wheelchair and had to make a quick stop to get a security badge made, but soon we were over in the NICU.
The NICU nurse asked Sarah if she wanted to hold Danni, Sarah of course said yes and I helped her into the bedside chair. The cords that were hooked up to the monitors were pretty short, so we could really only hold her in that chair, and pretty much only facing the one direction. Sarah held our daughter and eventually she was able to do skin-to-skin contact. The nurse closed the curtain and Sarah held her on her bare chest. I was told that Danni tried to feed, which was a good sign (we were slightly worried because we were told that if babies don’t suckle within the first x amount of time they might not ever get to breast feed) but she couldn’t get anything out because Sarah had just pumped. Sarah held her for probably about an hour and a half that time, fighting to stay awake and marvel at our new baby.
Eventually Dr. Baker, the cardiologist, came in and wanted to talk to us about her heart. He had the echoes and some drawings and went through them with me (Sarah couldn’t stay awake) and told me exactly what we could expect with the first surgery. He said that the heart was slightly different than had been thought before, but it was better and the way it was formed would make the first surgery a lot easier. He wasn’t so thrilled about the second surgery, but that was months off so we didn’t have to worry yet. He ran down the list of problems her heart had, most of them acronyms that I didn’t understand. Eventually he said that her surgery was scheduled for Thursday morning.
After he left, Sarah finally let me hold Danielle. I sat in the chair and tried my best to hold her “the right way” and not let her choke or be uncomfortable. She was tiny! It was unbelievable that even wrapped up in multiple blankets she was so little. I almost thought that I was going to crush her if I moved wrong.
At one point the nurse came in and we talked about what was going to happen the next day with the move to the CVCC. We were told that she would be moved in the early morning and that we could be there, or we could wait and just go to the CVCC when we got up. She told us that we could expect that they would have to put in an external pacemaker and that they may even have to intibate her that morning. If she were to be intibated we wouldn’t be able to hold her until a few days after her surgery when they could take out the tube. But the nurse told us that it was all up to the doctors and nurses in the CVCC what would happen. We decided to take a quick trip up one floor and talk to the nurses there. We were given a tour and told what we could expect, when the surgery would be, where we would be waiting, that kind of thing. They told us that they would have to wait and see what condition she was in, but they promised that they would give us a phone call if they had to intibate. Satisfied, we left and headed back to Sarah’s room.
I talked on the phone with Denise, who said she was headed over to the NICU to see her granddaughter, and I had some hospital admin errands to run over there, so I told her I was going to meet her over there. Sarah wanted to rest a bit so I left her there and went over to admin where I had to change our daughter’s name from Baby Girl to Danielle Joann. After that Jon called and I stood outside the NICU (phones weren’t allowed to be on in the NICU) and talked to him and he said he would swing by after work to see his newest niece.
When I got to Danni’s room, Denise was standing at her bedside taking pictures at a rate of about 100/minute. I asked why she wasn’t holding her and was told that I had to give verbal permission to the staff in order for that to happen. That was an easy fix. Denise held her for a while and I got a few pictures of grandmother and granddaughter and we chatted. We went back to Sarah’s room, but she was resting so Denise and I decided to walk over to Global Market to get something to eat and just get out for a bit. The trip took us an hour or two and when we came back Sarah was up and moving again and so we visited and waited for Jon to arrive.
Once Jon showed up we all headed over to the NICU for a visit. When we got there Sarah immediately jumped into the holding chair and was given Danni to hold. We got a few pictures and the nurse came in and drew blood and eventually they needed to take blood pressure, so Sarah had to put her back in bed. After the vitals were recorded, we let Jon hold her. He has had 7 children, and I think that all of them dwarfed Danni. He made some comments about how small she was (his last son, Miles, was over 10 pounds) and how redneck her name sounded, and so on and so on. Eventually nine o’clock came and visiting hours were over. Jon put her back in bed and we told her we loved her and I gave her a kiss (Sarah couldn’t reach) and we headed out. Jon and Denise left right from the NICU and Sarah and I headed back to our room.
I wanted to go home that night. My plan was to go home, get a good night’s sleep, return in the morning and spend the next night (pre surgery night) at the hospital. Sarah didn’t want me to go and we talked about it and eventually decided that I would stay just to be near her. We got ready for bed and Sarah decided she was up for a shower. While she was in the shower I got a phone call on her room phone saying that Danni’s blood pressure was a little lower than they liked and so they were putting her on meds. They said not to worry, that they would call if anything changed for the worse. So Sarah and I took a few laps around the maternity ward and headed for bed.
