Rest of Hospital stay

After hanging out with us for a couple hours and getting her first feeding (which went really well) Lily was off to the nursery to get cleaned up and checked out. The monitors showed that she was having respiratory stress, breathing at over 100 breaths per minute when normal is under 60. She also wasn't getting ideal Oxygen levels. I'm not going to embarrass myself by trying to use medical terminology, I'll embarrass myself with my poor man's explanations. The oxygen in her blood is measured by sticking a red light thingy on her foot and somehow converting that into a percentage. The number should be above 90 but hers was in the mid 80s. I'm sure there are those that know what I'm talking about anyway.

First the nurse put her on oxygen with a giant space mask like helmet. She did calm down a bit and her oxygen levels went in to the normal range but after an hour she still wasn't getting enough air on her own. The Dr. decided to put her on CPAP. This is short little tubes inserted into her nose to force air into her lungs. The way they hook it up looks like a head gear contraption from her Orthodontist. I chose not to take any photos of her with these things. Not a site I wanted to remember.

Once she had the CPAP it was off to the special needs nursery. Since she wouldn't be able to nurse while hooked up the respiratory devices they hooked her up to an IV. I elected to walk out of the room at that point which turned out to be a really good idea. They poked her anywhere and everywhere to try and find a spot, including both sides of her head. The Dr. also chose to start her on antibiotics just in case it was pneumonia or some other kind of infection that was causing her distress. Initial thoughts were she had some fluids in her lungs, some sort of pneumonia, or her lungs just hadn't fully inflated.

Skipping ahead 48 hours she got to come home with us with no worries. It was a nervous couple days but she ended up being just fine. The next morning Dr. took off her CPAP and said the x-rays showed that her lungs just needed a little extra help to inflate fully. She still had to stay in the special needs library until she was weened off the IV, the heated bed, and passed respiratory tests like breathing normal in a car seat. At least we could then pick her up and Beth could feed her.

Tuesday afternoon Jack made his first trip to the hospital. He, like most everyone else, wasn't allowed in the nursery so he had to watch through the window and really didn't get to see her until we were released. He was interested but mostly interested in anything other than what he was currently doing. Here's some more photos from the rest of the hospital.
Beth smiling at Jack outside the nursery.
Jack trying to catch a glimpse of mommy's baby.
Here she is all hooked up with monitors and the IV on her hand.
Jack was happy to be relaxing in bed again with his mom. Especially if she has a Cheez-Its and a drink.
Looks like Grandma made a trip to the vending machine.
Wednesday waiting for Lily to be let out.
Finally we can roll her down to our room.
So cute. She seems to like her binky.
Poor little beat up feet.
After she was changed into her first outfit.