Melissa Part 2

OK, enough with the hate mail :-) I know I said "tomorrow" and then skipped a few days!

After scrubbing in to the NICU and putting on gowns and masks, etc. we were led in by one of the night nurses. She was very excited that Melissa was going to be adopted. It seemed like we walked forever, I had no idea a NICU could be so big. She was in the last plastic little isolette at the far back corner. We took a breath and looked in... my first thought was "This cannot be the correct baby!" She looked just like snow white. (the clear plastic box surrounding her added to the effect) She had lots and lots of black hair. Not wisps of baby hair but thick shiny hair, as black as an onyx stone. She had tiny little rosy lips. I had expected the cleft lip, but instead it was only the palate so her face was absolute perfection.

You can imagine our shock! Every picture my brain had inadvertently drawn was completely wrong. We stared at this beautiful fragile looking child with all her monitors and tubes, her preemie sized diaper falling off, and this little shiny heart lying on her chest. We looked at one another, we had no idea what to do now! The nurse laughed and began to detach her from all the electrodes and tubing. She offered us chairs and then she handed us our daughter. She felt so little! I didn't quite know what to do with her. As we stared at her she opened her eyes, they were so big and as black as her hair! So black that you could not find a pupil. She didn't cry. We held her and looked at her for hours, praying over her and welcoming her to our family.

Leaving that night was impossibly hard. I wanted to go back right away in the morning but we had a 2 year old at home and she was not allowed in. A few nights later we visited again, this time taking Anna and an adult friend to play with her in the waiting room. We could not take her home until two days after the g-tube was put in so we would have to wait another week. The surgeon explained what he would be doing and how she would be fed. A nurse heard that Anna was just outside in the special waiting room for families with NICU babies. She wrapped up Melissa, hiding all her tubes and wires under the blanket and secretly whisked her out to meet her big sister! Anna was quite delighted as was our friend Chris who got to see her a full week before everyone else!

(Blogspot currently will not let me put a picture here. I'll try later)

The day we picked her up was surreal! We were shown how to feed her with the g-tube. I had done this in nursing school on adults with full bags and IV-pumps but never on an infant. She was fed by gravity, a very simple system where you poured formula or breastmilk into a larger tube which led to a smaller tube into her belly. We left with a bunch of formula samples, some tubing, and a complete lack of confidence!

As we walked out the door we were met with a mountain of hospital paperwork and a car-seat inspector. We kept looking at one another wondering if anyone else noticed we were just leaving with this baby. We drove away and let out big sighs of relief. It still seemed very odd that we had a new baby. We had a lot more to learn, including having to feed her once before we even got home!

Story continues with part three...soon!