No Strings Attached!!!

March 22nd (Day 1): We find out I am Group B Strep Positive, but didn’t have the antibiotics (which you get by IV 4 hours before birth…we arrived 30 minutes before birth). There is a high risk Kory will have the infection.

March 23rd (Day 2): Kory has a hard time maintaining temp & has a couple additional warning signs for infection. Cultures are coming back negative (meaning he doesn’t have infection), but a few more are still be to done to know for sure if he has GBS.  He goes into Special Care nursery as a precaution and to start antibiotics in case (infants who have the infection stay in the hospital for 7-10 days at best). Us in our little spot in Special Care. They have tons of rules to keep things sanitary and safe there (for which I’m grateful). Austin’s hand were pretty raw though from all the washing!You can only have a couple people visit and no toddlers (sorry big brother!)

March 24th (Day 3):  Kory’s cultures remain negative. His temp is more stable BUT we find out that over the previous night Kory was borderline brada cardia (out of range heart rate the signals baby is in distress). Doctor orders and EKG & Echo Cardiogram.  Amy gets discharged and we wait in the hospital to find out if Kory comes home. At about 11 p.m. we finally hear that his tests look good but the cardiologist recommends he stays in until 4 days old. We go home to get some sleep, instead of stay in our bordering room across the hospital in pediatrics (that was quite a walk every 3 hrs to nurse!)(Hanging out in our Ped boarding room, Cade waits for Melanie to pick him up – he’s excited to see Peyton)

 March 25th (Day 4): Kory passed his car seat test (stress test they do while they’re in the car seat before they can be sent home). We find out the cardiologist also recommended Kory get sent home with a heart monitor as a precaution until he is one month old. We board in the hospital and plan to be DC’d and on our way home on Day 5 (unfortunately because he was born in the middle of the night).

(Kory’s monitor makes him look buff!! Whoo-hoo! It’s an ABC – Apnea/Brada Cardia monitor, which goes off if he doesn’t breathe for 20 secs, or his heart rate goes too low or too high).

(Outfitting a baby with an ABC monitor is trickier than we realized! No zip-up sleepers for awhile!)

March 26th (Day 5): We waited forever to see the Pediatrician it seemed like! We were so anxious to take Kory home.  The boarding in went well with no alarms. The nurse did our DC teaching. He passed his hearing test and then we waited…and waited. Finally Dr. Anderson came in to talk with us. We found out that on Kory’s EKG they noticed his PDA was still open (an extra bloodline from the heart to the lungs while still in the womb which closes just before birth). It’s not abnormal to still be open, but since they noticed it they wanted to follow up (of course…another precaution).

(Austin does his dad tradition and dresses Kory to go home – after two kids you can call it a tradition)

(Kory’s all snug in his car seat, with his “tail” hanging out)

March 27th – April 14th: Kory is doing really well. He gains about a pound a week (well over what is average gain). He is a happy, contented baby and a great eater! He doesn’t go many places or even see much of the house because of his little “tail”. The monitor has not gone off at all, even for a false alarm.

April 15th: We see the cardiologist to follow up about the PDA. It has closed nicely, but as has been the pattern, as they find one potential problem resolve, another pops up. Kory’s electric circuit appears to go from left to right, instead of from right to left. This didn’t show up on the first EKG, so she said one of them is wrong and we will do another EKG in two more months to check (I’m laughing at this point!). She also recommends that the heart monitor can come off but to contact our ped to get the official word.

April 16th: I call the ped office, excited to get it off, only to find out our Dr. is out of town for the remainder of the week. Dr. Anderson (filling in for Neilson) says he recommends we keep it on and check with Dr. Neilson when he gets back.

April 18th: Dr. Neilson’s nurse (who happens to be in our ward) calls us and says she’ll order the download. If we don’t hear back by Friday to call in.

Friday, April 22nd – Happy one month old – still with a monitor. I didn’t bother calling because I knew it was hopeless to get it off by Easter :(

April 25th – April 30th: Did a lot of bugging the Dr. and the monitor company. Our Dr.’s nurse was very helpful. Apparently, they not only took forever to switch out the monitors (which happened Thursday, right?) but then took until TUESDAY to download. No hope of being cord free by Austin’s birthday!

May 2nd: Call the ped office to bug them again. Just after close they tell me that he has to have it on for another month, as recommended by the cardiologist. I was so frustrated!!! I couldn’t understand why because he was doing so well (but it’s already 2 weeks past him being a month old anyway – which is when he was supposed to get it off). They call back 15 minutes later and say that he was confused because he has another patient with close bday, same situation who has to keep it on. KORY GETS HIS MONITOR OFF! YAY!!! Just in time to go to church for the first time on Mother’s Day (we’ve been sick) with no monitors and all healthy!! I was so thrilled! You can see his little mark from the monitor always being on. I celebrated by giving him a full, real bath! Now we have one more hurdle – the 3rd EKG on June 9th. Hopefully all goes well and we end this saga with some giggles and gratitude at how all of the careful and precautionary measures ended up being nothing. To be continued…