Thurs - Saturday

While I was in the recovery room, mom made the obligatory calls, I asked her to just let Devin know. He was prepared to come then and there, however, my mom told him he wasn't allowed. He wanted to come the next day and told him that I'd call him the next day, but it was neccessary for him to just be patient. She asked him to call his mom for her to save her the calls/quarters and he got pissy and hung up on her.

My step sister Adena called around 2am and they had told her as soon as I could gather my marbles I'd call her. I called her around 0530 and she came to see me as soon as she was finished work. My first real visit with Presleigh was at around 0900 with Adena. I was still fairly fuzzy brained but it was awesome to have family there instantly.

Presleigh required 80% support from oxygen when she arrived in the NICU in the first few hours and by 0600 she was unintobated with nasal prongs for support, only requiring about 21-25% assistance, feeding tubes and wires and monitors which was pretty scary at first. I had received steroids while I was at Rockyview just in case, and they helped her immensely. I started journalling things that morning because everytime I was visiting there was something new to know and I couldn't process everything so fast so I have maintained the journal with every visit so that when I get asked questions, I can answer without saying "Shit, can't remember" all the time.
So from my little journal we had the time lines of the intobation switch and we also have some quick quirks and traits.....
- tonnes of curly hair
- Devin's ears and chin but my nose thankfully
- she is O positive blood type
- no birthmarks that we can see at this time
- despises, really despises being wet but hates being changed even more
- does not like being disturbed - very Devin'ish - when she is sleeping, if you move her, change her tubing etc, she throws a huge temper tantrum about it and it takes a few minutes to calm her down.

She had to be put under the bili lights on Friday as she was very bruised from being forced into this world and she was slightly jaundiced. So she had some ultracool shades on. When I went to bed Friday night, she was laying on her back, starkers, under the lights with her shades on, one arm thrown over her head getting a tan. I kept expecting a pool boy to show up with a tall cool one by the expression on her face. :-)

She has had several visitors including a couple from Devin, however, he does have to go with me in to the NICU as only I can escort people in. He has already chosen alcohol over his daughter and its not boding well for him. The more impatient he gets with me (and everyone else!), the more I reduce the flow of information. He keeps a journal of baby information about his nephews and friend's babies, so he started one for Presleigh. I had originally been filling in his blanks for him from the first day since I have to be fair, he wasn't allowed in. However, his behaviour on Friday and Saturday have stopped that flow.

His mother on the other hand, is going to lose more than the flow of information if she says one more negative derogatory thing to me.
When she came to visit with Devin on Thurs evening, the first thing out of her mouth when we were at the isolette was "This is going to be my only baby girl granddaughter, I am very upset that you didn't call me when she was born." I said "Carol, have you any idea what happened on Wed night and how crazy it was?" "Your mother could have done it." and I tried to reply that we had asked Devin to because of not having easy phone access, however, she says "Doesn't matter it is in the past, don't worry." Well if it was in the past, then why the fuck bring it up!?! Then we were back in the waiting room with Greg, mom and Devin, Dev and I were talking and I was teasing him about the bet we had made. He had bet me $20 I'd go to term and told him to ante up. I was teasing him, because I knew he couldn't. His mom turns to me and says "You would have gone to term if you had stayed on bed rest instead of galavanting across the countryside."
I can't believe someone would say something like that to the mother of a newborn NICU baby. I had let it go in one ear and out the other until mom brought it up later. I will be saying something when I'm not so emotional but it was such a low class remark and I refuse to allow someone to blame me for something I didn't do. I did everything I was supposed to, had to, needed to, to protect this baby and I will continue to protect her from comments and behaviour like that.

Friday night in the middle of the night, they moved me from my room up to a unit with moms that didnt have their babies with them as they needed my post partum bed. When I walked to this new ward, I thought I was walking into a 1960s sanitorium. It was peach melba hell. There was this girl sitting on a chair at the payphone with her foot up, snapping gum and I was waiting for her to start smoking... the walls were peach, the curtains looked like tea towels my grandma had in the 60s, my shower flooded, and I couldn't hear the babies. My sanity on being on the post partum unit was I could hear them. Just because I didn't have Presleigh with me didn't mean I didn't want to hear them... I NEEDED to hear them. So I bawled my face off for awhile and then went and sat with Presleigh until 2am to get my sanity back. I feel asleep in a drug induced haze and woke up at 830 to begin my whirlwind again.

We had so many visitors on Thursday and it was fantastic.
So today, we are going to spend the day at the hospital. Rach is going to take some story books and sit and read to Presleigh since they can't cuddle just yet, and I will get some time with my girls.

I'm sure that I have more to add to the notes of these past few days and they'll appear in later posts, however this has gotten long and my butt is getting numb.