Arriving in the NICU

We arrive at St. Vincents in Portland at around 2pm. The ambulance pulls in the ER area and as I gingerly climb out of the front seat they are pulling Rowdy on the stretcher out the back. I ask the EMT team how he did and they said he was great...just slept the whole way up. We enter thru the automatic sliding doors into the hospital Rowdy won't be leaving for 16 days. We walk right thru the emergency room and to an elevator to take us up to floor 3 where the NICU is located. I am still just in a haze. Hoping to see Lance soon, I hope he can find us...he had to park in parking garage and walk up thru the front.

We enter the doors of the NICU...the lights are dimmed, many nurses bustling about, and there are MANY incubators and beds with TINY little babies. They wheel Rowdy up to a bed where there is a nurse ready for him. Her name is Karen and she has a comforting face. We are drawing a lot of attention from all the other parents visiting with their babies. I feel them watching me...i'm wishing they wouldn't, I look as bad as I feel, and I know if I make eye contact the tears will start to flow again. Lance arrives, he is in as bad of shape as I am. We just stand back aways and watch as the EMT team detaches Rowdy from his spaceship incubator stretcher and transfer him to the hands of Nurse Karen. She is now working to get him set up in his new bed, which I later dubbed his tanning bed because it has a heat lamp above him to help regulate his body temp. All the wires and probes are going on. My eyes don't leave Rowdy's face...he seems TOO peaceful in the midst of the chaos around him. The tears start again, I can't believe that this is my sweet little baby that 12 hours ago was still swaddled in my arms in our room. He looks scary attached to so many things and having that suction tube thru his mouth. I am scared that they aren't quite sure exactally what was causing him to get so sick.

Lance and I stay by his bedside and watch him sleep. We are told he will be evaluated tomorrow morning by Dr. Baxter, his neonatal specialist, and we will have a meeting with Dr. Barry Newman in the morning. He is a pediactric gastrointestinal surgeon. The NICU closes down from 7-8 for rounds/shift change. They wouldn't have any info for us until the morning. Lance and I decided that we would head home to Salem for the night to get a good nights rest in our own bed. To be the best parents for Rowdy we needed to make sure we took good care of ourselves too. We need rest. We need to be with each other. We are VERY drained, emotionally and physically. We kiss our little 2 day old son goodbye, and have to leave him in the hands of strangers and drive the hour away to our home. I have never experienced such grief as having to leave my little boy up in Portland. Lance and I sobbed the whole way home. The questions and concerns about the unknown swirling around in are hearts and heads. This is just not how family life was supposed to start. This isn't how we were supposed to go home...without our son.