My Nephew

Oh, you should be warned. This might be a bit of a hornet's nest.

My sweet, adorable nephew, Aiden, was born Wed, July 1st. Isn't that a great birthday? I have this thing with dates, and that one sits very well with me. It must be fun to be the 1st! Anyway, it was a totally routine, necessary c-section (the necessary part is pretty important to me). He was *this* close to being a full 8 lbs. And like most babies of insulin dependent moms (or so I'm told) his blood sugar crashed. That's not a huge deal, except he was stuck in the nursery for a day, so Mom who was recovering from surgery couldn't see him, but Dad could. Then the little punk thought he would just start breathing too fast. Again, I don't know much about this, but apparently that is pretty worrisome. THEN, they found a heart murmur.

Shoo-wee child, cantcha give us a break? Or, cantcha catch one? Anyway, its meant 4 days all but alone in the nursery, and finally last night they were moved into a live-in situation where he could be monitored, and Mom and Dad could be with him 24/7. Let's pray that tomorrow they can go home, right?

Let me be the first to say, I hate this whole thing for Caroline and Geoff. As someone who has a little bit of experience medically in that grey area of "well, its not that bad and its not that great", I know, its HARD. Obviously, when it's great, you go on your merry way and totally take for granted how great everything is. It's just the way of things. When it's bad, you cry, you wail, you gnash teethe, and eventually come to find some acceptance in your situation, a little bit of peace in the midst of the suck. It's a far sight less awesome than great, but at least you know where you are. But when it could be either, it's just plain hard. It's like when you are waiting for the test results to your biopsy, or you wonder what the result of your MRI was only to find out it was clean for one thing, but dirty for another. It's not bad yet, but it's still not good.

You know you ought to be thankful for the parts that haven't gone bad yet, but for me that just leads to a list of all the other things that could go wrong. And how will this affect my health in the future? And truth be told, I'm going to live, I'm going to make it, but will I ever get to be normal again, like I was? It's like a roller coaster that instead of feeling good, feels bad, so you have all these ups and downs and you never really know how to feel, and you are told to just keep waiting, we'll see how it goes. Its such a feeling of powerlessness. It's humbling in that not so sweet way. You get to watch everyone else control their lung function, their fertility, their sanity, but you can't, or well, you don't know yet. All these things that everyone everyday takes for granted that they get power over, you don't for the time being. It's hard, let me tell you, real hard.

Of course, I've only had it applied to myself, not my child, so I'm sure that is a whole other ball of wax. A big, awful, rank, rude ball of wax with your baby stuck in the middle.

Here is where this post become all about me. Which I felt bad about for a second, but then remembered this blog is mine, so if you aren't reading this thing for my perspective, then I'm probably going to upset you a lot.

Allow me to admit that even though I have almost no medical training, I have a low intervention philosophy and I really really REALLY believe in the power of the mother/baby bond. I think when you keep mom and baby separated you take huge risks, so it should only be for something really bad that they should be separated. I think Dad's are a great first runner up, but they were not physically built to meet all of a babies needs, and I don't think they are emotionally or hormonally built to meet their needs like mom is. Do NOT get me wrong, I think Dad's are an indispensable part of a family unit, just that they aren't literally built to provide every single need for an infant. I totally understand that keeping mothers and babies together when things get iffy introduces a ton of variables and makes the process a lot less streamlined. But if the whole point is to keep baby healthy or get the baby to healthy, I just haven't seen a case where keeping mom out of the equation helps. Rather, I've seen and have come to understand that mom's involvement makes the world of difference.

I saw the epitome of these two thoughts this week. The nursery Aiden was in was your standard baby nursery, not the NICU, not something else, just your plain ole nursery. They, the very well qualified, nice, caring nurses, kept him in there under lock and key because he was stressed. WHY IN THE WORLD didn't anyone consider that maybe he was stressed because he missed the one person who is built to care for him? Babies and mothers have physiological responses to one another that promote health and well being. He was probably stressed more at night because mom was in her room sleeping instead of checking on him more regularly. He was probably stressed because you were poking him with IV's (totally necessary) and feeding him through a tube (also necessary). But if we know what we are doing is stressing a baby out and also necessary, then lets calm down, finish the procedure, and promptly return him to mom. Even when babies need to be highly monitored, they should do so with mom.

Then we have the live-in nursery. Totally different approach. I was still not allowed to touch him, though I could be around him. Around 8pm, the charge nurse came in and said, "Okay, time to check your vitals, so you can eat!" and of course, Aiden started crying because he was hungry and now couldn't snuggle with mom, which of course, messed up his vitals. What did the nurse do? She said, "Okay, lets calm down, mom, you come hold his hand, lets use this pacifier to calm him for the moment. He is just hungry." She knew that taking a babies vitals when they are hungry promotes the cycle of stressed baby begets more interventions which begets a more stressed baby. She had to take them, but she didn't just say, "He's stressed, lets shove this tube down his throat AGAIN." She helped him calm down, got an accurate vitals and said, "Mom, you're the best thing for him now" even when she knew mom was about to try breastfeeding for the first time (stressful). And it was stressful, but she gave it a shot (and even though he didn't latch right on, things looked really good to me. He did all the normal stuff I see new babies do with new moms. I think they'll get it if she doesn't stop trying.), then gave Aiden his bottle and he went right to sleep. No more stress. JUST LIKE A NORMAL BABY. I think if you treat sick babies like sick babies, they stay sick, but if you allow sick babies to try and be healthy babies, you get healthy. I'm not saying she should have over done it, but we all respond well to a little bit of stress, it's overstressing that is worrisome, and I think keeping mom from baby is the number one thing you can do to overstress a baby. Period. Dot.

Like I said, not a medical professional, not even close. It's just what I think. It's how I parent.

So maybe not period dot. I was just thinking how trying to eliminate all the stress is this child's life is actually contributing to making it more stressful. And I think that is why I'm so mad about it. Instead of letting him try to climb whatever hill he can, they cut him off at the pass. For instance, his blood sugar tanked, so they had to keep him in there to get that stabilized with a glucose drip. He couldn't climb that hill, he needed intervention. Then he started breathing fast (a sign of stress, I'm told). Instead of getting him and mom together immediately and then assessing him for a real stressor, they kept the one person made to reassure him and calm him down away. For days they just kept looking at him and asking, "I wonder what the deal is with this baby? He is totally healthy and can control his blood sugar, but he is stressed out over SOMETHING!?! We better keep him away from mom a little while longer." COME ON! It just kept snowballing until finally someone said, " lets get him in a different room where he can hang out with mom". So far, so freaking good! GAH! And part of me is upset with my friend because she could have been in there a lot more, she has just always been afraid to rock the boat. That whole nursery was concerned with Aiden's well-being, but no one is more concerned about his well-being than his mom. She should have a considerable amount of input. And really she does, she just didn't use it, didn't know she could, and if I even tried to make a suggestion it was shot down. So part of me feels like she facilitated some of this situation. I hate feeling like that, but I do. I'm sure the pain of not having her baby was more severe than recovering from surgery! So why didn't she get in there? Because she was afraid. Afraid that she would upset someone, that she wouldn't know what to do, that her opinion regarding her son meant less than a nurses? I don't know, she just didn't.

I figured out this week that anger is real and good. It's the emotion that is triggered when someone feels the need to protect. It can used for bad, and should only be used for protection in an appropriate way. So even though anger is good, a lot of times it is misused and hurts people. With that, I am mad at her. I am mad that she alone had the power to improve his situation and didn't. And I am mad that she didn't know that. I am mad that if she had let me make it known, she wouldn't have believed it. I am mad because Aiden needed a measure of protection and didn't get it. And for a whole week I have been mad and couldn't tell you why. And now I know, and now I can release it. I can give it to God by saying, "I hate that he wasn't protected all of the way in the best way, and I hate that I couldn't do anything to change it. Thank you for being there for him when she couldn't or wouldn't. Thank you that you are in control, that you love Aiden more than any of us combined times a million. Thank you that I don't have to carry this around anymore because I give it to you. It's yours to deal with. Thank you for being God, and thank you that I am not. Help me forgive everyone involved for not protecting him in the way I thought was best. Thank you that everyone did the best job that they knew how. Help me forgive mom and dad for not allowing me to give my opinions. It hurt me a lot that they don't think what I have to say is valid when it doesn't go along exactly with what they think is valid. It hurts me that I don't want to tell them about it because I don't feel like I can when their son is not in the best of shape. I know they are in the middle of a storm anyway, so help me to forgive them and let it go without getting to discuss it with them. Help me extend some mercy to them as it is really hard to deal with complaints and hurts when you are hurting yourself." It's hard to be angry and not to anything about it, but that is just what Im gonna do.

So as I was bitching, I mean typing this out, it looks like just one day with mom was all they needed. He should be released today. Uh huh. That's right, I'm smug as a bug right now.

But ya know what? They are doing the best they can, and if they wanted my opinion, they would ask for it. They don't want my opinion, and maybe it's my pride that is hurt more than anything, because, obviously, I think highly of my opinions. Maybe I'm hurt more than they didn't want it all versus asking for it and not liking it. Maybe it is that I have a strong opinion about this and that they wouldn't give the time of day to something I thought was really important is what is hurting me. I think its a bit of it all.

Hornet's nest? Told ya so.

At the end of the day, Aiden is healthy, and beautiful, and will go on to be just fine. Amen.