June 12

Everett looked good this morning, peaceful. His numbers were all great and he had a calm night. Dr. Germain was on, I haven't seen him since he took my baby from me on his birthday, two hours after his debut. I feel bad that that's the impression I have of this man, he is a nice guy, clearly smart, but his face will forever be burned into my brain as the first person who brought on the bad news that never seems to end. I reminded myself as I was listening to them talk in rounds, he is more of a miracle man who saved my baby for me, but the punch to the gut feeling will never fade, no matter how hard I try.

Stephanie was today's nurse. She is awesome, she is older, most of the nurses are so young. She let me take care of by baby today, she treated me like his mom, not someone looking on. During "her" hands on she let me do it all, which made me nervous sometimes, and it took 3x as long since I am so gentle compared to them, and I talk to him the whole way through like we're out to lunch. She reminded me he's my baby, I'm the mom and I'm allowed to take care of him, it was refreshing. Watch out future nurses, mama's in charge now! Stephanie said so! Those little things help me start to connect with him in a way I needed to two weeks and one day ago. Than you Stephanie.

Dawn was the nurse practitioner and although she usually keeps a business face, she asked me how I was doing today (maybe I looked like shit, highly possible, I was quite nervous about today's events) and she also told me Clara was precious. We have some pictures hanging inside his home away from home.

Next I met Melissa for the first time, she is the best of the best (or so they told me) on the PICC team. She looked him over, she showed me all the places he has already been poked in attempt. :((( She looked over every inch of him trying to find a vein that would work. Unsuccessful. She was sad and hesitant to tell me she wasn't going to try. She said she didn't want to poke him, yet again, unless she was SURE she would be successful with the PICC. She didn't want to try the spots someone else already had, which was too many in my opinion. I agreed he'd been through that enough but I was so nervous about surgery which I knew was the next conversation. Holding tears in, reminding myself that they won't be 100% honest with me if I seem weak, I don't want anyone to sugar coat the truth...she talked to me about the broviac which is the catheter that goes through his chest to a major vein by his heart. This will allow all his fluids and medicine to get to him and the UVC in the belly button to be taken out. I kept reminding myself with this new set up, I'll be able to do what they call "kangaroo care" which allows me to be skin to skin with him. Something we did for the first hour after he was born for an hour. Big picture, it's always so hard from me to focus on the big picture. I just can't stand for him to have to go through one more thing, there's always one more thing. My poor sweet pea.

I left since I wasn't allowed in for the surgery and I had no idea when it would be. He was fast asleep. I haven't been home much this week and was excited to give Clara some attention. Bonnie came to be with her again today. They had a great morning swimming and playing. I wish I could bottle some of Bonnie's energy and keep it for myself...she loves to play, and teach, Clara is so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people. Thank you Bonnie. Then Clara enjoyed lunch which was a delicious spinach smoothie and a cupcake from Nancy. Best cupcake ever, yum!

Shortly after I got home I got a call from the surgeon for permission to complete the procedure. I asked too many questions, thankfully everyone that works at this facility appreciates that I ask questions and they answer them thoroughly, always patient. There are two types of broviac lines. one is tunneled and one is non-tunneled. The non-tunneled only lasts about 10 days and the other lasts months. Dr. Brooks ordered the non-tunneled. This makes me nervous. Clearly I want Everett healthy over the next ten days but in my mommy opinion, if they're doing surgery, and they're not much different, why not do the month one just in case, that way he doesn't need to go back under and suffer through another surgery unnecessarily. She thought for a minute and then told me the tunneled one is a tad more difficult to take out, but it didn't sound that much worse. I am no doctor, although I was hesitant to agree, I said I supported whatever decision they thought was best. I hope I don't regret that decision. He was heading to the OR in an hour. I was a mess, Clara was a great distraction. We played, read, danced, sang nursery rhymes from a book Bessie and Harloff got Everett, she made the time fly...thankfully. I got a call saying it was done and it went well. Andre went right there to see him, he sent a picture I don't want to add since I never want to look back at it. To me he looks beat up and it breaks my heart. Everyone said he looks and is doing great so I'll take their word for it. The nurse said he'd be out for most of the night so I just let Dada's visit (with Darren and Corrie) suffice for tonight. I can't wait to see him in the morning, Stephanie is on again in the morning and she said she'll make sure I can hold him. I can't wait for tomorrow!

Other details for me to remember about today:
They're going to discontinue the hydrocortisone today which is for his blood pressure. They changed his morphine (.013) from every 3 hours to every 6. He is staying on antibiotics (vancomycin/8hrs and tobramycin every 24/hrs) until tomorrow and they'll decide if he gets a week of them or is taken off tomorrow. They're using the Finnegan Score to determine if he's in withdrawal, Stephanie went through it with me on his check and he scored a 0. She told me how she sees so many babies born from addiction suffer all of the symptoms, I can't even imagine. I talked to the nurses about how groggy he was still and they agreed and helped me talk to the dr about weaning him more on the morphine so he'd be more attentive and with it. I don't want my baby in pain by any means but he's so glazed over, I don't like it. They're only taking his blood gasses every 12 hours now so that limits the pricks. Yay. They did more today since he had surgery, the numbers still looked good. Way to go little man.

I really feel like we're getting on track now. He's becoming more and more stable and his stats fluctuate a lot less. His medicine is less and less, there is space to move around his "room" with more and more machines leaving. I'm confident this little fighter is making his way out of this nightmare start to life he's had.

I'm so so sorry this was your first impression of life on Earth sweet Everett, I promise it will only get better. Once you're healthy and I'm in charge, your life will be grand! I'm so excited to love on you, and eat up all your fat rolls, I have been dying to bury my face between your neck and back fat, you're so yummy. I love you. Oh, and your big sister says "Everett, brother" all throughout the day completely unprompted and random, she is thinking about you all day too, just like mama and dada. She can't wait to love and torment you when you get home.