At St. Vincent's they give all babies a 4 hour window to make improvements before sending them to the NICU. Natalie was borderline. When her 4 hours were up she had shown some improvement with her breathing so they decided to keep her in the well baby nursery a little longer. Around 4am on Thursday December 4 Natalie was admitted to the NICU just to help with her breathing. She was so close to not going but they didn't want to hurt her by not sending her. They do not like to take risks, which is perfectly fine with me. Natalie ended up being put on oxygen and a ventilator just to apply pressure to help her breathe so she wouldn't work as hard and burn calories. Plus this would help her lungs to develop some more. She was off of the vent and oxygen by Sunday. While in the NICU she developed an infection and was put on a 10 day antibiotic which ended up being what kept us longer than originally planned. The antibiotic was given through IV 3 times a day. She also had jaundice and was under the light for 3 days. Although it wasn't the ideal situation and wasn't the easiest thing I had ever done, I would much rather all of this happen while we were still there instead of bringing her home and then having to take her back. I definitely wouldn't have been a fan of that. Daniel and I made the journey to Trussville every afternoon when he got off work to go see our baby girl. We were both exhausted but wouldn't pass up going to see our baby girl for one night. Every time we visited the NICU we counted our blessings. There were 11 babies at one point in there and Natalie was the biggest one. The smallest baby weighed 1lb. While Natalie had some obstacles to overcome along the way; there were others in there who had much bigger obstacles.
This was the first time I got to hold her. She was 2 days old.
Nana holding her for the first time.
We have on clothes. :)
Dressed and ready to go home.
Daniel and I appreciate all the prayers that were sent up for our baby girl during this time. She made it home on Saturday, December 21. Just in time for Christmas! ;)
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