Leona's first week

Shortly after the joy of finally getting to meet little miss Leona, and her lungs were suctioned to get lots of amniotic fluid and meconium out:

and we had had some bonding time and she had been bathed, I noticed her breathing was still very labored and called the nurse in, who whisked her away to the baby-holding-room.

We were told she'd be held there for a while for observation, so Judge and I moved into our room and waited in anticipation for her to return to our side. Unfortunately around 3am on April 26th the nurse called our room to tell us her breathing was too labored - she was in an oxygen box where the oxygen had to be cranked up to 100% for her to breath more easily - and she needed to be sent to the TaiDa children's hospital's NICU about 20 min or so from the birthing center so she could get proper treatment.

Around 4am Judge went with her in the ambulance, and came back around 5am after completing the paperwork and ensuring she got settled in.

Sidenote: In Taiwan, the TaiDa children's hospital is the best children's hospital on the island, so we knew she was in good hands. Angie (my doula) also told me it is quite forward in it's policies as there were 3 visiting times a day (she said when she gave birth to one of her sons and he had to go to a NICU there was only a single half hour in the morning where she could visit him).

And so started an exhausting and terrible week.

Judge not only drove back and forth to NICU for each visiting hour each day, but also had to drive back to our town twice (1 hour away) for paperwork.

In terms of me, I started hand-expressing colostrum (and then finally milk) every 2-3 hours around the clock. In the beginning there was very *very* little unfortunately - not enough to cover her needs. Also, because I had lost a bit too much blood - not to mention 20 hours of off-the-chart contractions and no food - I was quite exhausted, and in the beginning was only able to visit her once a day.

The first day visiting her was the worst, as this is what met us at our visits:

The diagnosis was dirty lungs (an x-ray showed stuff in there...) and potentially an infection, so she was put on oxygen, had a tube down into her belly to check her digestion (which was poor in the beginning), had an IV for her treatment, and lots of other attachments to monitor her breathing, heart-rate etc.

Thankfully she improved quickly, and by day 2 she was already off oxygen and only on air:

And by the afternoon of day 2 she was off air (though only for a short time). The trauma she had been experiencing though, being alone a lot of the day and in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar people and being so uncomfortable was evident:

Her strong personality was also evident, as she was constantly working on getting the tube that went down into her stomach out:

It wasn't until my visit that evening (day 2) that I finally got to hold her again (and she was back on air):

Day 3: We had to move out of the birthing center, and had wanted to move into the children's hospital, but there were no available rooms for us. Thankfully a friend had helped us call all the nearby sit-a-month centers, and there was one 20 min away from the hospital that was willing to take us for 5 days. This way I still got nurse care as well as nutritious food specifically catered towards mothers who've just given birth.

Day 4: She had successfully extracted the stomach tube herself, with her hep-locked-n-plated right hand and mitted left hand she had still somehow managed to dig it out~. The doc decided she didn't need it reinstalled.

All the tape had left her skin all scratched though~

This was also the first day I got to feed her breast milk - though from a bottle only as she was still hooked up to the monitoring machines.

Then finally, on day 5, I could start breastfeeding her:

And Judge could start burping her:

And finally she was almost ok to come home with us:

By day 6 a lot of the injuries on her face were almost gone:

On day 8, May 3, we could all go home (or to Judge's home for our sit-a-month):

I am of course thankful for NICU, thankful that she was able to get the treatment she needed to be the healthy girl she now is. But I still get choked up when I think about that week, and see the pictures. 

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