Week 2: Hospital to home

The following updates were originally posted on our facebook page for Eloise on February 5-9 2021.

Friday, February 5, 2021 Hoping to go home today

Feb 5 evening update from Mallory

1. Still no MRI news. And I believe the doctor shifts normally end in 45m or 1h45m from now.
2. Getting urine for an analysis From a tiny baby is really hard. We are on our 5th try. She definitely can’t go home without it.
3. The breastfeeding specialist came to help us, but, nope. Not her thing yet. Alas, I think this too might be a long road for us. So if you have any tips on a double pumper that’s somehow magically hands free, preferably can be purchased from a store in Estonia like… tomorrow, then send suggestions to me or Brian. (Better yet if you’re in Estonia and you know where I can borrow or rent something.)

Saturday, February 6, 2021 Frustrated we’re still here

Feb 6 morning update

Feb 6, Afternoon update

1. Between Thursday and Friday Eloise gained 100g. Between Friday and today she gained 44g and has now officially surpassed her birth weight. I had no idea if these numbers were good or not but Dr. Google seems to think so.
2. She continues to eat their suggested amount (40ml) almost every feeding. With some feedings her demanding much more.
3. She now soothes waaaay faster than in NICU (probably due to me actually being able to follow her cues and just put her little body next to mine.)
4. No more warming bed. (The NICU sent us with one for some reason and told me to keep it on. But the nurse today scolded me and said “You won’t have this at home. You do want to go home, don’t you? She has to learn to hold her body temperature without it.” I checked her a few hours later and she’s even warmer than she was before.)
5. Just really wishing I knew WHY we are still here and what, if anything, I could do to get us out of here faster.
6. On an unrelated note, our living room ceiling started leaking again today apparently. Poor Brian. Just. Yeah. Prayers and good thoughts.

Feb 6, evening update

1. On the 7th try I THINK the urine analysis finally worked. There was only a tiny amount in the bag but the nurse came just in time (literally within seconds) to grab the collection bag before little Eloise pooped in it, too. Whew. I’m just praying the amount was enough.
2. Thank you for breast pump suggestions! Brian managed to secure one in Estonia today (that feels like a miracle, normal things take weeks to get here) and I now have my very own handsfree homemade bra.
3. There is a pediatrician on call tonight who speaks English. I’m hoping she’s brave enough to come by to talk to me. Our midwife was working our floor yesterday so she wrote up our history on Eloise’s notes and is hoping that they will be more communicative.
4. I go up and down but I’m happy to find that (at the suggestion to try it out from my midwife) if I pump every other feeding, then I somehow produce 25% more than I did with 2x as many pumping sessions. Before, with pumping every feeding, it was getting to a point where it wasn’t going to be enough. I feel so much relief. Hoping that production trend continues and that I get slightly more sleep. (My Fitbit says I’m going on 1h45m).
5. Poor Brian is really struggling. We all just want to be together and he, more than any of us, just feels really helpless. My midwife suggested we do crisis counseling. I said maybe in a few weeks, but really what will make us feel better is to be together.

I don’t really have time to respond to (or sometimes read) all the kind words. But it seriously means a lot.

Feb 6 late night update

1. When there is a baby with possible red flags they can immediately see (she has quite a few with losing her twin brother Leonid in 2nd trimester, her tiny size, her fused toes, her disfigured pointer fingers, and some of her facial features though I keep telling them those features are most definitely distinctly from Brian’s family), then there are specific neonatal doctors that order tests and come up with plans and next steps. And they only work Monday-Friday.
2. Right now the hospital is really stretched when it comes to babies. They have more babies than usual, along with 3 sets of twins, and not nearly enough staff to tend to them all well.
3. The fact that we didn’t go home Friday was likely due to the fact of under-staffness coupled with the fact that the on-call doctor couldn’t speak English so, we were just deprioritized. Either that or they wanted to monitor her bilirubin levels (jaundice) for at least a little longer. Which sadly fell to the weekend.
4. Nurses and midwives apparently either don’t have access to or are not allowed to give out exam results, plans, etc to patients here. So that’s why staff has seemed to be unable to give me answers.
5. Bless the nurse Olga that I saw this morning. She got the doctor on call to speak with me this afternoon to answer at least a few questions.
6. MRI results were inconclusive. She said they don’t know if the cysts/lesions maybe developed during the pregnancy from a virus. Or maybe it’s genetic. Again, the neonatal doctors will need to figure out where to go from here to keep investigating.
7. If I understood correctly, she believes we WILL go home tomorrow, but with a very clear plan from the doctor on next tests, etc.
8. The doctor commented (several of them have, now) on how active and alert she is and how she appears just like a regular baby.
9. They tried to check her hearing and her ears are just too tiny for the machine to work right. She’ll have to get this done again in the future. But the lady said from what she can see, they look normal.
10. Her bilirubin levels (jaundice) have gone down for 3 days in a row now. Yay!
11. Today she’s already eaten 40% more than they suggested she eat. So whereas yesterday I was ahead of the milk game, pumping every other time, now I’m falling behind. I think we can make it to tomorrow though.

Just really hoping for a very early discharge tomorrow. Brian is ready to take over sleeplessness for awhile.

Sunday, February 7, 2021 Waiting to go home

Feb 7 afternoon update

For whatever reason we were the first to be seen by the children’s nurse today (the last one to be seen yesterday). So she got weighed only 15 hours after the last weighing and gained only 10g. I really hope they don’t count that against her.

I told the nurse that she eats well, poos well, holds her body temp well, is growing, and, as far as I can tell, all exams are done for her and we really really want to go home. Or at least know why we’re still here. I told her we are happy to come back every day if we need to for weight or appointment and they can always call me via phone for test results.

She said she also doesn’t know why we are here but the pediatrician on call today does speak English and she will explain we want some answers. (She also mentioned they have too many babies to handle at the moment. I told her I get that. So send us home so you have less!)
They’ve already weighed her, took her temp, and took blood to check on her jaundice this morning so it FEELS like something is moving. Next up is a hearing exam.

I’m hoping for a miracle that we can go home today. Or, at the very least, tomorrow.
If I don’t hear anything by mid afternoon a friend will try to call the hospital on our behalf to see if we can get things moving another way.

Monday, February 8 2021 Last day in the hospital

At 2:30pm a doctor finally came. She said it would take her an hour to write up the discharge papers (Eloise will have a long list of follow up appointments at the high risk hospital in town). 2.5 hours later (Brian waiting in the parking lot for 2 of those hours) and we were finally reunited.

I thought I was a stable human until this experience. I just did not anticipate how hard it would be to be separated from Brian in all this (I also wasn’t expecting a 2 week hospital stay.) We’re both hoping to emotionally exhale a bit over the next few days.

Tuesday, February 9, 2021 Home!

Brian’s working on the finger-syringe feeding method. Beginning this morning, Eloise is starting to wake up herself and tell us she’s hungry (until now I’ve always had to wake her, and then she shows hungry signs.).

She’s been noticeably calmer (almost completely chill) and gained already almost 50g from yesterday. Considering the days before it was +8g and +10g, I’m going to chalk it up to just a better environment for her, and wondering how closely it’s tied to my own emotional state.

I also feel like an entirely different human (although I still did the feedings last night since Brian was struggling to I get the position right.)

Eloise’s first specialist visit is next Monday. And although all her discharge info is in Estonian, it feels like now that the 3 of us are together, we can tackle this one hurdle at a time. I’ll just probably need to lean in to our network here to find a friend or friend of a friend to help us interpret results along the way.

Struggling with pumping