I am not a fan of today’s news.
We received a phone call yesterday evening from the nurse practitioner. Jayce has a urinary tract infection. To treat it quickly with antibiotics, they had to put his IV back in. He should immediately feel better once the antibiotics take effect. The initial plan is to leave the IV in for an entire week. <crying> The lab will analyze his fluids and update the treatment plan as needed.
I’m thankful for effective treatment. I am so over seeing him poked with needles.
UTIs are not uncommon for infants, nor are they difficult to treat. And actually, a UTI was one of the possible explanations for his elevated bilirubin, so perhaps fixing this will fix that too.
Today marks the twins’ two week birthday. Which, I’m literally just now realizing as I type, coincides with the first break Josiah and I have taken from daily NICU visits. Now I feel super guilty. Awesome.
Both sets of grandparents visited them today so we could take a break. We need it. Or at least, I need it. I swear Josiah doesn’t get stressed out about anything. I was calm on the phone when the nurse called and promptly burst into tears when we hung up. He takes it all in stride.
When people say parenthood is hard, I was thinking of things like lost sleep from giving bottles in the middle of the night. Or toddler tantrums in public. Massive blowouts at inconvenient times. Cold and flu viruses repeating endlessly through the house. Not getting to watch our own movies. Carrots on the floor. Crayon marks on the wall. Stuff like that.
I didn’t think of two weeks in the NICU with a repeating cycle of, “Hey, we might have bad news. Whoops, false alarm, never mind. Oh hey, we might have new bad news. Well, we’re not sure what kind of–whoops, false alarm again. Hey wait…”
I am so thankful most of Jayce’s issues have turned out to be nothing. I’m thankful in the big picture, they are both healthy and growing.
But this is really hard. We see other parents leave the hospital with their little humans tucked in car seats, and we think, “They get to leave with their kids.” We were at the store this morning and I saw little kids walking with their parents. In my less rational moments, I see them and I wonder if we’ll ever get to be that family.
Alternatively, if you catch me in a good moment, I still feel sad for a second but then remember this is a brief speedbump in our lives. The kids will come home in weeks. Not many, many months, like so many other NICU families. In just a few years, this NICU time will be something to tell the kids about when they’re older.
But right now, that future feels so very far away. We want our kids to be here. We don’t want them to have blood drawn or IVs or wellness checks from nurses who have their best interest in mind but must do things scary to little bodies.
I am so very ready for this to be over. We’re two weeks in and a lot of growth has happened. (Thank you, God!) Maybe another two weeks see us close to the finish line.