Day Five

Day five. Wow. At least I think it's Friday, right? Yeah, it is. Today is our fifth day, which seems so strange. In some ways, I feel like we just walked through the doors, but in other ways I feel like we've been here for weeks. Let's just say, overall, I feel a little too "at home." It's only taken less than a week for me to fall into a morning routine, but that's probably no surprise to the people who know me. If I had a reason to make a to-do list, I probably would have already done that, too. It's weird though, never once have I felt "bored." Even if I literally just sit in this chair and watch his numbers for an hour, I never feel bored. I guess there is just constantly something on my mind, whether it's big stuff (like Hayden issues) or minor stuff (like I'm running out of my tinted moisturizer). There's just always something. Oh, and I can feel myself rambling a lot...kind of like this paragraph of random information. Let's move on to a Hayden update...

Overall, he had a pretty good night last night. Nothing has changed for the worse and there have been no major setbacks, so that's good. But sometimes it's a bummer when I realize there are no major improvements. However, the logical side of me knows and totally understands this is a slow but steady process that will simply have to take as much time as Hayden's body needs. But the momma side of me gets sad or disappointed about some things--depending on how strong I'm feeling at the moment.

He's still intubated and most likely will be for at least another two days. Could be longer. They tried to lower the vent settings a tiny bit yesterday, but they brought them back up because he was once again just trying too hard to compete with the vent. That's one of those things that I knew to expect, but was still a bummer.

Lately he's been getting pretty irritated with the poor nurses whenever they suction out stuff from his lungs...so mad that his heart rate is dropping very low and taking a while to bring back up. I do not like that. At all. Even though I know he'll bring it back up, it is really scary to hear the alarm go off and watch his numbers flash in red because they're way too low. I hold my breath the whole time until I see happy, normal numbers again. But despite that scary drop, he must have the gunk suctioned! It's part of this process, and we so don't want all that staff just hanging out in his lungs. I've said from pretty early on in his little life that he's an opinionated baby, so I think he just wants to let them know that he's not cool with what they're doing.

Really I feel like this might be a pretty uninteresting post because I'm not so sure that it includes any big changes, but this is just kind of where we are right now...waiting, watching, praying.

While I was sleeping last night, one of the amazing nurses who has been with us a few times now did a little more work on his bed to give it another new look. I love how much they all care about the smallest details to put a smile on our faces. They build a little "nest" of rolled up blankets to keep them really cozy, and she used one of my comfy, soft t-shirts and one of his blankets to make his current nest. Hopefully he can tell it's my shirt, so it will feel like we're cuddling!

Another thing about being in the ICU...I don't know if this is true for all parents, but I constantly feel guilty about something, and I need to just let that go. When I'm here, I feel guilty about not being with Macey and Easton. Then I left for a couple hours on Wednesday evening to see them, and I felt guilty for not being with Hayden. When I sleep, I'm thrilled to get some rest, but then I wake up and feel guilty for having missed out on any details that happened through the night. I seriously need to get over it because really, ain't nobody got time for guilt trippin'. We have plenty of other things to focus on!