this is when we had a slight change of plans

After spending a sleepless first night with a newborn: nurses coming in every two hours to check vital signs, Parleigh waking up to nurse, catheter to be removed {gross, I know, but it was nice not having to worry about waking up to go pee—which I’ve been doing for the past 9 months!}, pain medications to be administered., a shot of morphine to help me rest {that was NICE!}, I was ready to have to sun come up. Around 7am the nurse came to get Parleigh to check her vitals, and I decided to take a shower.

To answer your questions, yes, I did dry and straighten my hair. And, I even shaved my legs in the shower. Crazy, I know!

While I was in the middle of blow drying my hair, the pediatrician came in to talk to us about Parleigh. When they were checking her temperature, she had a fever of 101.5 degrees. Apparently, it is very rare for newborns who are younger than 24 hours old to have a fever. The pediatrician said it could be an infection which could be from Group B Strep, which I tested negative for, and newborns get it when they pass through the birth canal which Parleigh didn’t because I delivered her by c-section, and they would start her on antibiotics, they would also take some blood tests that would take 48 hours to get the results back, and it could possibly be spinal meningitis. And since it could possibly be spinal meningitis, we should give them permission to do a spinal tap to rule it out.

::I’m posting this picture, because when I look at it, I can once again remember the emotions I felt when they told us about Parleigh. ::

What do you do? Just a few hours before, everything appeared perfectly fine. I was healing nicely, Parleigh was nursing and sleeping and now they wanted to stick a needle in my baby’s back?{and to make matters worse, the pediatrician and neonatalist were extremely persistent that we should sign the form to allow them to go ahead with this procedure and if we don't, Parleigh would have serious issues because of it.} Let’s just say that it was a very emotional, stressful, and scary time for us. After praying about it, we felt that although the pediatrician made it sound like a spinal tap was the only/best option for us, we decided just to wait and see how the blood tests came back, if the antibiotics worked, and if her fever was going to come down.

Parleigh was then moved to the “Special Care Nursery” {which made me cry when I realized that’s the NICU} where they hooked her up to monitors and ran an IV in her.

:: The pulse oximeter—a machine that monitors circulating blood oxygen levels ::

:: Heart Monitor—monitors baby’s heart rate and respiratory rate ::

:: Since they couldn’t find a vein for the IV in her arm or leg, they placed the IV in her scalp. ::

It was so.much.fun.trying to change her diaper and nurse her with all the different wires/cords

Our routine now became: Every two hours {unless the nurses called for us} I would get out of bed {which took a couple of minutes} use the restroom {which took a couple of minutes} while Ben went and got a wheelchair and a cup of ice water for me, and then we would head down to the nursery where we would wake Parleigh up, change her diaper, nurse her for about 20 minutes, and then head back to our room. It was actually kind of nice throughout the night because we would have 2 hours of straight sleep before having to head down to the nursery. But on the flipside, not being able to hold my baby without having to walk clear down to the nursery {and it was quite a ways, hence the reason for the wheelchair!} was frustrating.

When we first found out about Parleigh’s high fever, our first thought was it was caused by the Heb B vaccine which Parleigh had had a few hours prior to having her temperature checked. The pediatrician and nurse automatically ruled that out, saying that it doesn’t cause a fever. {Although all vaccines give my children fevers every time they get them at their well baby check-ups.} After all the blood cultures, the urinalysis, and 2 doses of antibiotics, the diagnosis? Fever unknown. Ben and I think it’s because of the vaccine {but we are just parents, not medical professionals, and don’t know what we are talking about.}

We were so excited to finally leave the hospital and come home!

I am so thankful that Parleigh is okay. It was quite the experience to go through, and I can’t imagine how parents go through much more challenging beginnings. Parleigh is gaining weight, sleeping, pooping, and peeing, everything a newborn should be doing. We love her so much, and feel so blessed to have her in our family.