Homecoming . . . NICU . . . Homecoming . . . Relief

Yesterday afternoon, the three of us brought Milla home. It was wonderful to have our family of four together at home for a brief period of time. We spent the afternoon relaxing together, had a nice dinner and were about to make a birthday cake with Anja for Milla.

Then things took a turn for the worse. We were shocked to witness our little Milla choking on some mucous or something and turning blue in the face. Erik was able to do some infant back blows which were able to help clear her airways and allow her to get some good breaths in again. She was only in distress for a few seconds, but it was after a few small cries Milla's color in her face came back but her extremeties remained a purplish blue for sometime. We called our clinic's afterhours line and were instructed to take her into the ER as soon as possible.

We arrived at the ER and were helped out fairly quickly. After another bout of choking and blueish extremities, we received much faster help from a sleu of nurses and doctors. The doctors let us know it could be just an isolated incident of choking, but it also could be a host of other things. We appreciated how serious they took the situation. After contemplating sending us to Children's Hospital, they realized they could use the NICU right there at St. Johns - I doubt they get too many 2 day olds in the ER.

We went up into the Special Care NICU unit and Milla was put into a warmer bed as her temperature was below normal, and hooked up to a number of monitors to watch her heart rate, blood pressure, O2 level and breathing. Later, she was hooked up to a machine that monitors symptoms of apnea and records them for the night.

The nurses did a few tests and were quickly able to tell us that they didn't feel it was anything out of the ordinary. To be safe, we were to stay through the night so they would be able to rule other problems out. I stayed in Special Care to nurse Milla and Erik was given a room in the maternity ward (right outside).

It was a long night, but very reassuring to have brought her in. They think that it was only mucus or milk that she was choking on, as her systems are still so immature that her body just needs to learn how to do things. We left at noon today armed with more information and skills to help Milla get herself out of these predicaments. We will be watching her very carefully as every time she wakes up, she chokes a bit, spits up through her mouth and nostrils, and looks alarmed. This is scary for us, but the nurses assured us that it's normal and that we did the right thing to come in and have her checked out.

You quickly learn how easy it is to become so attached to someone so new when something like this happens, and we were very relieved to bring Milla home with us again today. Tonight, we once again plan to be together as a family, and finally make Milla that birthday cake.