Getting over RSV

Christian ended up being on the ventilator for 6 days.

Lindsey had the girls the first week and she brought them up to see us that weekend. It was hard trying to split our time between the baby and the girls. When we were with the baby, I felt guilty that we weren't with the girls. When we were with the girls, I felt guilty that we weren't at the hospital with the baby. But it was good to see the girls and spend a little time with them.  They stayed at the hotel with us at night, which was extra exciting for them!

{Having fun with the girls at the children's museum at The Gateway}

 

The doctors finally took Christian off of the ventilator on a Saturday. I was so happy to get to hold him!!! He was smiling and so happy. Probably because we were holding him and because he didn't have that tube down to his lungs anymore.

{Right after the extubated him}

{Smiles!!!}

We were in the PICU for four more days after that (total time in the PICU was from Monday, March 4th to the next Wednesday, March 13th) and then they transferred us to the floor.

The nurses in the PICU were amazing! Christian had a shared room but a lot of the time he had his own nurse because they had to keep a close watch on him. The nurses told us that they were the most expensive babysitters we'd ever have and to take advantage of that. So while he was in the PICU, we slept at a hotel at night.

Jake went home on Sunday with the girls. My mom stayed up with me and Christian. We got to hold and snuggle him all day, but he was still hooked up to an IV, all the monitors and he was on hi-flow again after they took him off the ventilator.

He was able to go to just oxygen after a couple of days.  They slowly turned the oxygen down and eventually he was stable enough on a low enough setting that they let us leave the PICU and have a private room.

{Off of hi flo and on just oxygen - you can tell by the nasal cannula.  The hi flo cannula is bigger.}

We were on the surgical floor from Wednesday, the 13th to Friday, the 15th (the surgical floor because they needed to monitor his heart and they could record it in that wing). I stayed with him at the hospital those nights. He was such a sweet little guy. He would smile at all the nurses, even when they woke him up in the middle of the night to feed him and change his diaper.

{Cuddling with mom}

By the time Friday came around, I was more than ready to go home. Christian was on 1/32 of a liter of oxygen (the lowest setting) but they just couldn't wean him off of it. He actually did great off of it on Friday for most of the time but he didn't pass his carseat test - he had to sit in his carseat for an hour with no oxygen, but he couldn't do it. His body needed that teeny, tiny amount. I told them if that was the only thing keeping him in the hospital, just send him home on oxygen. I was ready to resume life and be with Jake and the girls, too. So they let us go home!