Max Part-III

I heard a saying when Max was in the middle of his NICU stay. It said, "People say the NICU is an emotional roller coaster. What they don't tell you, is you're being dragged behind the roller coaster by your ankles." There's really no way to describe the difficulty of having a preemie, that explains it as well as I ever could.

At first, I was freaking out. I was terrified of everything that could happen. Terrified of the unknown.

Once he was stable, and "recovering" it wasn't terrifying. At all.

Just, hard.

The support system that appears, is incredible. Suddenly, I had a whole bunch of new best friends, all the other moms that had their babies in the same NICU.  Even new friends that were acquired through instagram and all my hashtags ;) . It truly is an emotional roller coaster and one that I don't hope to ride ever. again. So much happened while he was in there. It seemed like he was in there for.ev.er. It was only three weeks. I still can't believe it was only three weeks. Those weeks were the longest most emotional weeks of my entire life. I have to say, I am so lucky to have two wonderful big brothers for little Max. They were so patient and good with the whole situation. We didn't get to spend a lot of time with them and that was definitely a struggle for me. Earlier in my pregnancy, Aaron had given me a few blessings. In each of them, the same thing came up. I was told to spend as much time as I could with Kade and Tadd because after this baby was born, he would need extra attention and Kade and Tadd wouldn't get to have my attention as much. When I'd gotten these instructions, my mind went wild with possibilities of what it could mean. Once he was born, it was more than obvious.

I'm so glad we were with family! Kade and Tadd got to spend lots and lots of time with Nana, Grandpa and Brock and Becca. They were in heaven. They get whatever their little hearts desire when they're at my parents house.

Every mother that's had a baby in the NICU knows what a hardship it is. Whether your baby is in there for a day, a week, a month. It's not easy, the longer the baby is in there, the harder it gets. I'd go in one day and he'd be improving so well! The next day wouldn't be near as promising. He wasn't declining, just maintaining. It's good, but not great.

  Max was a trooper. His only consistant progress was with his weight, aside from one or two little weight losses or desats. He initially got down to 3 pounds 10 ounces, but then had constant weight gain after that. It was slow, but steady. He was under bili lights and the cpap for the first week, roughly. He was in an isolette for about 2 weeks until he could maintain his own body temperature. The feedings, that's what took the longest and was the most frustrating for me. He was only allowed 30 minutes to finish about 20cc. To give you an idea of how little that is, 1 ounce is roughly 30cc. The doctor said, if he took longer than 30 minutes, he'd be burning more calories than he was taking in, which would result in weight loss.

We would show up some days and the nurse would tell us he finished his bottle earlier that day and was doing great. Then they'd have me take a turn feeding him, we'd try the whole half hour with dismal results. They'd end up putting the rest in his feeding tube. I hated not being able to feed my own baby. I couldn't figure out what I was doing differently than the nurses. A bottle is a bottle, how hard can it be? Nursing is a whole other story, but bottle feeding is supposed to be easy.  I was so frustrated that he couldn't figure it out. More so, because that meant we weren't close to bringing him home.

We felt so displaced. Not only did we have a preemie, in the NICU, we weren't at our home. We didn't have beds for the boys. Brock gave up his bed for Aaron and me. For 6 weeks. For 6 weeks he slept on the floor so we could have a more comfortable stay. What a brother. Am I right?


We had some pretty incredible nurses. When I think about them, I get really emotional. I'm still trying to think of a proper way to thank them. No matter how many times I said the words to them, it just didn't feel like enough. They are the best group of women I've met.

The message and photo board in the NICU. This board is filled with thank you notes and photos of recent patients. It was definitely encouraging, during harder days.

For the first few days he was under bili lights 24 hours a day. 

I loved when they let me change his diapers. It allowed me to feel like I could do something. anything.

During my second visit, I got to do skin to skin with Max. For the first time since he was born it actually felt like I was bonding with my baby. I was in absolute heaven. 

I think he was too. ;)

The first weeks of his life were mostly documented via Instagram. Thank goodness for that gem.  It became our easiest and most convenient way to update our friends and family on his progress and post oodles of photos of him.

 

I was torn. I wanted to be taking pictures but I didn't want to "miss" anything. I wanted to soak in every second that I could. Due to being 40 minutes from his hospital, we weren't able to be there near as much as we would have liked. The most we were ever able to do was a few hours. We were incredibly blessed and thankful to Aaron's boss. At his brand new job. They were incredibly understanding with the whole situation and told him to take care of his family and return when he felt like he could.
Huge blessing.
He was able to be there for Max, and for me. I needed him there.


Not a lot of photos were taken of him during the first few days. He was under the heat lamp, and bili lights. In addition to that, he had the c-pap on. Needless to say, you couldn't see him well under all that stuff.

His poor little arm with the IV. It looked painful.

After the first week and a half, Max was moved from the critical portion of the NICU. We didn't know he was even considered "critical" until after they moved him. 

Kade could hardly contain his excitement about meeting his new baby brother. He kept making his excited sound. (If you haven't hear it before...ask him to do it for you. It sounds like a motor/laugh of some kind...)

He was hesitant at first. I think all the equipment was just overwhelming. But after he warmed up to it, he walked around like he was running the place.

 Tadd, because of his age, wasn't aloud to be in the NICU. We brought him a couple of times to look at Max through the window. He'd just stare in awe. 

Kade was always wanting to hold his hand. He was also positive that when Max was stretching his arm up, that meant he wanted to hold Kade's hand.  He'd stare and stare. Completely in awe and in love with his baby brother. 

There were a few really rough feedings once he was started on the bottle. He couldn't quite get it down.