The Post Introducing the Daughter (Part 2)

It's too bright!

So, Maia was born two weeks ago today, at 12:06 p.m.  When she arrived, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck twice; explaining in part why they could register her breathing on the ultrasound the previous night.  She was immediately taken to the hospital nursery where we each got to hold her for the first time; about a minute each.  Just as we and the nurses were about to try and bottle feed her for the first time (I would say about 30-45 minutes after birth), everyone kind of noticed that she was looking a little blue, the result of not getting enough oxygen throughout her body.

At that point, Maia started receiving oxygen assistance, supplied through a cannula (I think) at first, and then later in the day, through a CPAP machine, which also made sure that her lungs were completely open. What we understood at that point was that she might have pneumonia, but that she was also breathing too rapidly - anywhere in the vicinity of 90-100 breaths per minute, where she needed to be under 60 breaths per minute regularly before they could try any bottle feeding.  So, after a couple minutes of holding her, Maia spent the next day receiving oxygen assistance and nutrition through a feeding tube.

Cords and cords, everywhere cords.

It became apparent by the next morning, that things were not really improving; they weren't getting worse, and the doctor and nurses weren't alarmed, but her breathing stayed consistently too rapid.  For that reason, along with some other,  non-medical ones, we started talking about transferring Maia to another hospital that would have more resources to care for her.  Initially, they started talking about transferring her to Riley's or St. Vincent's in Indianapolis.  We took a quick look at our insurance coverage, not expecting to find anything remotely close to be covered, but discovered that Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne was in our insurance network, and it wouldn't be that much further to have Maia transported there as opposed to any of the Indianapolis hospitals.  We talked with the doctor, and she said she thought that was fine, and started making arrangements with Parkview.

As difficult as this was - waiting to add to your family for so long, finally getting that chance to hold your own child, and then having to sit and wait, powerless to do anything to help her get better - going to Parkview and Fort Wayne was as about an ideal situation we could ask for under the circumstances.  We would be back to only being a little over an hour away from home.  More importantly, Jackie's folks live in Fort Wayne and her dad actually worked at the Parkview Hospital we would be transferring to, and it was much closer to my folks; we knew we would have that family support and presence that we would be unlikely to get had we transferred someplace else.

So, the hospitals quickly made the arrangements and at about 3pm that Saturday afternoon, the transfer team from the Parkview NICU (NeoNatal Intensive Care Unit) arrived and immediately did their thing to start transporting Maia to the new hospital.  They worked quickly and efficiently while we looked on (again, feeling powerless to affect what is the biggest thing in your life at the moment is a frustrating, humbling, and trusting experience).

They placed her in this contraption, and started their journey back to Fort Wayne.

We started our journey up to Fort Wayne immediately behind, continuing to wonder when we would finally be able to not only hold Maia again, but take her to her new home.