28 Days in NICU
This was probably the longest 28 days of our lives. So much happened and there were so many times when you just wanted to speed it all along. At the end of the day, time will past, and you will be dismissed from hospital, only thing is, there is no set time for Gastroschisis baby recoveries, each case is unique.
Day 1 – 6
The first operation was a success and Gavin was doing well. A silo bag was attached to his stomach with his intestines inside it which will now over the next few days start moving inside him making space in his abdomen as it moves in. Because there are now so much more organs inside him, he is placed on a ventilator to ensure his breathing is kept under control. He also has a catheter inserted. We are now able to hold his hands and feet, just so he has that bonding with his parents. Gavin cannot eat at this point and time, so is fed by a IV line. He is also on pain medication and a sedative to ensure that the pain is not too much and that he can get the required rest in. Every second day the doctor would come and press down on the silo bag to help the progress of the insertion of intestines. They would then stitch the bag closed to ensure it does not move back up in the bag again. Because of all the pressure on his abdomen and the medication his water retention was very high which lead to him becoming very swollen. This is normal and looked much worse than it was for him. The morning of day 6 he was scheduled to go in for his closure operation. There was a few possibilities during the surgery, depending on the amount of skin available, they would do a one time closure if there was enough skin to close the opening or they would use a mesh to close the gap which would result in a 3rd operation being needed later to close the wound then. We were lucky and Gavin’s wound was closed entirely during the operation. This procedure took just under an hour to complete.
Day 7-9
Gavin is recovering well from his surgery, he is still on pain medication to ensure he is comfortable, but the dosage has been lowered to make him more responsive. We now waited for his intestines to start working. Once he has his first bowl movement, the nurses will be able to start feeding him milk through a tube in his nose. Day 9 is a big day! He had 2 dirty diapers which meant his intestines were working well. He was also taken of the ventilator and only had oxygen tubes in his nose, the pain medication and catheter was removed. His little scar from surgery also recovered well and the wound was opened to start drying out. The nurses started him on milk alongside the IV so see how well he digests the milk.
Day 10-15
The moment we have been waiting for for 10 days has arrived, we can pick him up and feel our son in our arms for the first time! He still had a few IV’s in him, because his hands and feet veins were pulling close, they had to put the drip in his head. This is also safer as he was starting to move his hands and feet a lot and it reduced the risk of him pulling it out. The amount of milk he is receiving each day via the tube in his nose is going up by around 0.5ml per day. Each day they are checking to see that the amount of milk inserted is absorbed and not rejected. He is also getting a little taste of milk in his mouth everyday. His antibiotics was also stopped as his infection count was very low. We also started changing his nappy during this period. He was also taken of the oxygen tubes and is breathing on his own now.
Day 16-20
On day 16 he started breastfeeding! He had a bit of moisture on the lungs and received physiotherapy for it. It was also during this time (day 18) that his belly button started to get inflamed. They waited for the bellybutton to dry out and fall of, but the scar was too deep and didn’t want to dry out. He was eventually taken in for surgery for a 3rd time to clean the wound and remove the little piece of belly button that would not dry out and fall of. This was a bit of a setback, he went back on antibiotics and also oxygen due to the fever and general sickness. His broviac line was also removed during this period. It was also my very first fathers day – very proud moment 🙂
Day 21-25
The following few days things started looking up again. His infection was looking good and the oxygen was removed again. He had a bandaid placed over the wound to ensure no further infections occur. He only had his little drain pipe in his nose. The days got really long by now, as your baby is so close to being healed and can go home, but there is no time frame given, so it can be a day or 10 days! To keep us busy we got to dress him for the first time 🙂
Day 26-28
The last few days we uneventful (luckily!) Each day we hoped that it would be the one they said we can go home. The morning of the 23rd of June 2015 was an ordinary day at the hospital. It was one of my days where I worked from hospital so both Jolandie and I were there. Now from day one the nurses will tell you not to plan ahead, you will go home when the doctor feels it is safe for you to do so. That morning the mood of the nurses was just different, it was like they felt it might be the day. So we got to bath Gavin and as he was wearing clothes by now, we dressed him in his prem baby clothes. Professor van Niekerk did his rounds around 9am that morning, and asked us “Do you want to go home?” Music to our ears!
