Aaron and I roomed in at the hospital last night because Ethan was supposed to come home today. The night went really well, or so I thought. This morning I got chewed out by the nurse for not feeding him on “the schedule”. Like I am going to let him cry for an hour if he wakes up early and is hungry. When he gets mad, his heart rate shoots up and his monitor screams until he calms down. I doubt its very good for him or for me to have to deal with that. I was also chewed out for not refrigerating the breast milk right away. Following the advice of the previous two nurses AND the pamphlet that lactation gave me, I was pumping milk to prepare the bottle for his next feeding. I was told that keeping the milk at room temperate was fine for 4 (or 6 or 8 depending on who you ask) hours. The morning nurse gave me a mental breakdown. I was feeling so positive about how well the night went – no issues with breathing or desaturation – and she totally crushed me.

Things just went downhill for the rest of the day. Ethan didn’t come home today like we thought he would, and at this point we don’t know when he can come home. His pneumogram results were bad. Even on caffeine, his results were extremely abnormal. He has various types of apnea and he randomly loses oxygen saturation. This happens frequently throughout the night. I have to room in again on Friday night, possibly stay in the hospital for multiple days in a row. They want me to be his primary caregiver and keep him hooked up to all the monitors to make sure I know what to do if he has any issues. They want to observe me and make sure I know how to feed him properly.

For weeks now we were told that he didn’t have any problems other than his suck swallow breathe reflex, and once he learned to eat from a bottle and gain weight, he would be ready to go home. Now, they are saying they are concerned about his breathing. For weeks we were told that the desaturation and apnea episodes were not a big deal because he has never required any kind of stimulation or oxygen to get him to breathe. He takes himself right out of the episode and he breathes fine again. I never thought it was a concern or anything to worry about. We were told that is why he would go home on a monitor – that is no big deal – most babies go home from the NICU on a monitor. Now we’re being told that its a major concern, that he is at a highly increased rate for SIDS, and blah blah blah. if it is so serious, why weren’t we told it was serious from the beginning???!!!

I am so sick of that stupid hospital. I told the pediatrician that I didn’t want him at that hospital anymore. We really want to move him somewhere else, Crosby or Forrest General. Yes, Crosby is really crappy but so is Northshore. They aren’t really doing anything for him, other than giving us grief. Might as well have that done close to home. The pediatrician said they cannot move him across state lines. WHATEVER.

They think we are idiots and that we’re trying to bust him out of jail or something – take him home before he is ready. If he’s truly not ready to come home, I don’t want him home. I don’t want him here if I am unable to give him the care he needs. The last thing we want is for him to end up back in the hospital because he has some terrible breathing issue. A good number of the people at the hospital don’t take the time to listen or to be sensitive to what the parents are experiencing. And they are so used to dealing with idiots they treat everyone like an idiot. We had a really good talk with the pediatrician today, but it took Aaron nearly telling her to shut up and listen for a minute to get her to realize that we were serious and wanted serious answers complete with all the medical jargon as we are completely capable of understanding the medical jargon. I’m rambling…

I want him to get better and I know that it might take some time, but I am so sick of stupid Northshore hospital. I never wanted to go there in the first place, and I never should have agreed to it. the only reason I agreed to go there is because I wanted my doctor to be there for the delivery and there was a chance he wouldn’t make it to Slidell Memorial on time since I planned to deliver naturally with no pain medication. Well, he happened to be out of town and missed my delivery anyway and now we’re stuck at the stupid stupid stupid northshore hospital. Oh well, no point in worrying about it now because I can’t change what has happened. All I know is that we will NEVER go back to that hospital for anything ever again.