Okay, it's been about 3 1/2 weeks since Mackenzie was born and boy, has it been an interesting time.
Mackenzie is doing great now. She's gained almost 2 pounds now. She still sleeps a lot but does manage to stay awake for a few hours during the day. She's normally awake in the morning around 9 AM and will then go back to sleep around noon or 1 PM. Sometimes she'll wake up during the evening but it all depends on her mood. If she doesn't wake up during the evening, then she will wake up in the middle of the night.
Like I said, she is doing great now, but ask me that one week ago, and I would have said, I'm extremely worried about her health. It's very interesting. With both of our boys, all my issues with them were during the pregnancy before they were born where I had to be on bed rest and medication to keep them from coming out too early. With Mackenzie, I had no issues at all during the pregnancy, but during the day of birth, we had a couple of "challenges." It just seems that with Mackenzie, all our issues are either during birth or after she's born. Some of you are probably thinking "What is she talking about?" Well, let me fill you guys in. Last Tuesday, we were a little worried in the morning because she felt hotter than normal. Michael took her temperature and it was a little bit above normal at 99 degrees. We didn't really think much about it at that time. Throughout the day, I sensed something really different with her. Like I said previously, she sleeps a lot, but will wake up at least once during the day for a few hours. Well, on Tuesday, she didn't wake up at all. All she did was sleep. She would complain about being hungry, eat, and then go back to sleep. I wouldn't be so concerned if she was a bit more lively while she was eating. During the whole day, she was very lifeless. It just didn't feel right. At around 4:30 PM, I fed her and she felt really, really warm to me. With all the other signs during the day, I started getting a little paranoid and was a bit worried. I decided to take her temperature and to my surprise, it was at 101 degrees. Well, according to all the papers that I received from the hospital, we're suppose to call the doctor if she has a fever higher than 100.4, so I did exactly that. While I called the doctor, Michael went to the store to get some infant Tylenol. Once I got through to the advise nurse, she told me that I should take her immediately to the ER so I called Michael back and we all headed towards UC Davis.
As most of you know, I am a very paranoid mother. Let's just say, I was very worried by this point. The nurse told me that infants her age are not suppose to be getting high fevers like hers and to immediately take her to the ER really got me worried. Of course, Michael was very calm about the whole thing thus far. We got everyone in the car and started heading towards my parents' house where the boys would be staying. After dropping off the boys, we headed to the hospital. I don't know how many of you guys have been to UC Davis' emergency room, but let's just say, it's never a quick wait. We got in line to see the triage nurse and that by itself, took an hour. The last time we were there was for Michael's stomach problems and I remember waiting there for a very long time. Being as worried as I was already, Michael and I agreed to only wait for one or two hours and if we did not get seen, we would go to another hospital (Methodist). Once we got to the triage nurse, someone else came by to ask if we were the ones with the 2 week old baby. We said yes. They told us that they were already aware of us and was just waiting for a bed to open up. This, of course, calmed me down a little knowing that they were aware of what was going on. We were asked to wait in the waiting room while they got a bed ready for us. We went out and waited. While sitting outside, we thought about asking them if we could wait somewhere else. I mean, there were a room full of sick people and we had a two week old baby whose immune system isn't really in the best shape.
We waited for about 15 minutes when a nurse came out asking about a 2 month old baby and we said ours was only 2 weeks old. The nurse, amazingly, also agreed that we should not be waiting with everyone else and took us inside to wait instead. Long story short, she was really looking for us. She got the month and week wrong. Once they started looking at Mackenzie, she got all the attention of several nurses and doctors. They started processing her immediately by taking her vitals. They also told us that she most likely would be staying for two days because they are very conservative with infants that young and take no chances. They also told us that they needed to take a bunch of blood and cultures to test them for any kind of infection. Babies her age should not get fevers, but when they do, it's normally a sign of an infection of some kind. The reason why we have to stay for two days is because the results from all the tests won't be back until 48 hours later.
With that said, they started the poking parade. First, they had to get some cultures from her (pee). Then, they tried to take some blood from her. The nurse started with the right arm, but because she was so small, that attempt was not successful. Then they went for the right hand. From there, they managed to get one small vial of blood, however it did not work for the IV that they wanted to insert. So the next attempt went to left arm and by looking at it, the nurse determined that it was not possible to put the IV there. So we moved onto the left hand. The nurse poked another needle into the left hand and after a few pokes and prying, she decided that she couldn't draw any blood from this attempt, but it would work for the IV so the IV was placed there. You can see from some of the pictures below that her left hand was quite wrapped up.
As you can imagine, Mackenzie was screaming her head off with all the poking that they were doing to her. I mean, even as an adult, I would be complaining if I was poked that many times, especially the way the nurse was doing the poking. Mackenzie's veins were so small that it was very hard to get it right the first time so she was poking around under the skin after she got the needle in her hands. It took quite a few pokes before she got to the vein. For some with small vein, I totally can relate to what she was going through. I remember with Nicholas, they were trying to put an IV in me also and that nurse was doing the same thing. And boy, I can tell you, I still remember how much that hurt (and that was over 8 years ago!).
For those who know us, I am the paranoid mother and Michael is the calm one. But when it comes to pain and sympathy, we are reversed. Michael is the one who normally gets emotionally and I'm the one who they call "cold blooded." When the nurse first started with all the poking, she told us that they would need help from us to help hold her or comfort her. Guess who volunteered, Michael or I? By the time the IV was in her left hand, Michael was pretty much on his knees with tears coming down his face. Michael could not stand watching them poking her so much especially with her crying so much. Luckily, Michael had to leave because he had to take the boys home. Nicholas had school the next day and only one of us could stay with Mackenzie. So, Michael left to go home and pick up some stuff for me.
While he was gone, they did a lot more poking with Mackenzie. Since they were not able to get much blood from her arms, they decided that they would try the foot. They started with the left foot and got a few drops. The nurse was hoping that the few drops were enough. I was hoping that it was enough also because she had gone through so much. They told me that now I just had to wait for a room to open up before we get moved. Well, I sat there comforting her and right when I got her to calm down, the nurse came back and said that the few drops were not enough. Since the left foot didn't work, they went to the right one. They were able to extract another vial of blood from that and when the nurse was done, I started calming Mackenzie down again. By this time, she was very tired and very unhappy. I felt so bad for her. Then to my surprise, they came back a little bit later and said that they didn't have enough blood yet and was going to try something different. This time, they took these tiny little needles and poked the bottom of her foot and slowly squeezed blood from her. They poked her twice there and took about 5 to 10 minutes to fill both vials with blood. By this time, Mackenzie and I were both tired of them poking her. You would think that after all that, they wouldn't have to poke her anymore to get blood, but with the way our day was going, would you be surprised if it was not. Well, it was not. It seems that the way they took the blood from the bottom of her foot was not good because the blood was contaminated so they needed more blood. Can you say, "I give up?" Well, since they have poked her everywhere already, the nurse went back to the right hand and FINALLY, they got what they wanted.
I was hoping that we would be done with all the poking by now. Guess what? They were not done. While I was holding Mackenzie at the beginning for the IV, one of the doctors was explaining to Michael about the need to get some spinal fluid. Well, no one told me about this so imagine my surprise when I heard about more poking. The doctor came back to explain to me what they needed and what they were going to do. Before they started the procedure, they asked me if I wanted to step out or if I wanted to watch. I decided to watch. Basically, they need to get some spinal fluid to test for infections. To get the spinal fluid was very similar to getting an epidural. They cleaned her back, figured out where to poke the needle, taped her back up, and then proceeded. You know how you have to sit in this very uncomfortable position when an epidural is inserted. Well, she had to stay in the same position also while they were extracting the fluid. To help her stay in this position, they had one of the nurses hold her down. The best way to describe the position they had her in is to imagine her in a folded position where her head was touching her legs. She was not happy at all, but she was also so tired that she actually fell asleep half way through this exercise. Hey, at least now, I know what they were doing to me when I had the epidural and the spinal amnesia injected during my two deliveries.
At last, there was one last thing that they needed to do and that was the least painful thing. They had to extract some liquid from her nasal passages. To do this, they injected some saline solution into her nose and then quickly extracted it back out. By the time all this was done, it was about 11:30 PM and they were finally done poking her. She was tired that she fell asleep pretty quickly. Now, all we were doing was waiting for the room to be ready for her. By 12:30 AM, we were upstairs on the 7th floor in a room. I called Michael to tell him where we were and went to sleep. You can see from the pictures below where I slept and it wasn't all that comfortable.
Since we didn't get in until after midnight, I wasn't expecting to leave until Friday morning. Throughout Wednesday, she was doing about the same thing as she was on Tuesday, just eat and sleep and was very lifeless. The only good thing was that she no longer had a fever. She was also on antibiotics just in case she did have some kind of infection.
By Thursday morning, she was doing a little better. She looked a little more lively and she was awake for a few hours during the morning. The doctor came in to talk to us and told us that we could go home that night if we wanted to. Even though all the cultures had not returned, thus far, everything looked good. They asked us if we wanted to go home later that evening or early the next morning. Of course, we chose later that evening. I was so happy that we were finally able to go home. Sleeping on a sofa bed isn't all that fun and it's next to impossible to get any sleep in the hospital. Mackenzie wakes up every 2 to 3 hours and between that, you have nurses or doctors coming in and out. And to top it off, we had a room mate also and they had nurses and doctors coming in and out. I was very tired and worn out by this time.
You would think that our luck was starting to turn with Mackenzie looking much better, but all that was gone by 4 PM that day. One of the residents came in to tell us that we could not leave because they found some bacteria in her urine test. They thought she might have a urinary track infection. The good news was that she was already on the correct antibiotics and if she continued to do as well as she was, we would be able to be discharged on Friday morning. Oh well, one more day to go.
More luck going downhill. During a normal routine check that night, the nurse noticed something wrong with her left hand. The left hand was where the IV was. When we compared her left hand with her right hand, we knew something was wrong. Her left hand was twice as big as her right hand. It was extremely swollen. It was explained to me that the vein was punctured and the fluid was leaking in her hand. Most of the fluid and antibiotic were now under her skin instead of in her blood stream. The IV that was there had to be removed and they may need to insert a new IV somewhere else because she needed to have the antibiotics. Well, during the visit from the resident to tell us about the infection, he mentioned that she would be given oral medication once we got home so I asked if it was okay to start the oral medication instead of putting another IV in her. The nurse said that she would ask. While we waited for the answer from the doctor, I was asked to put some warm cloth over her left hand to help the liquid absorb into her system. Luckily, the fluid would not harm her and the antibiotic under her skin would still be effective once absorbed into her system. By this time, I really was wondering if anything else could go wrong and was just crossing my fingers that she doesn't need another IV in her. I guess someone was listening to me because the nurse came back to say that she could move onto oral medication and did not need another IV.
Well, after all the downhill, things started to go uphill. By Friday morning, she was looking and feeling a lot better. She was up and moving around just like she was before all this happened. She didn't have any fever so they were going to send us home. All we had to wait for was the paperwork to be done which was complete around 2 PM however Michael had to pick up Nicholas so Mackenzie and I had to wait a bit more before we could leave. We finally left the hospital around 4 PM and got home around 5 PM.
Well, since then, Mackenzie has not had the fever and is continuing to do perfectly well. She's going to be one month old this weekend and it also happens to be Chinese New Year. We will be going back to my parents' house for all the festivities. Also, Michael will be taking the boys up to the snow next weekend while Mackenzie and I will be staying in Sacramento so be on the look out for new pictures and another update in the near future.
I think this is enough typing for one day. Below are some pictures of her in the hospital.