spoken for

It has been a long day, too, but I think I can get a little writing in here.

My body is all beat up, to say the least — red bumps and damaged hair follicles on my arms due to the blood pressure cuff, big red marks on my back and upper thigh from tape, skin irritations on my belly from all those days of constant ultrasound gel, holes in my arm/hand from giving blood and the IV, and 3 holes in my back from those crazy epidurals — but really, I feel a lot better than I did a few days ago. At least I don’t feel like that whale that swallowed Jonah anymore. My back is really the only thing that hurts, thanks to the epidural and epidural attempts. I feel like a question mark. I know it won’t last long, I just have to limit my standing time for a bit.

But Kayleigh, she’s the real trooper. Such a tiny one and she’s already been through so much and has a long road ahead of her. She has so many tubes and cords, it’s really overwhelming. Slowly but surely, though, I am learning what they all are and do as well as the machines. She has the breathing tube that works with three large machines.

Her IV goes in through her belly button and she’s always wearing a very tiny blood pressure cuff. Last night it was on her ankle, all today it was on her arm. There are more cords and what not that I don’t know what they are yet. They probably told me, but I just can’t seem to retain it all. Maybe I should start carrying a notebook to write things down. Sounds crazy but, wow. She gets red spots on her chest and abdomen from the monitoring pads they have on her that are moved every so often. The plastic piece that holds in the breathing tube is adhered to her face and it seems like it leaves her skin there sort of dry and cracked. The plastic piece pushes on her nose.

Last night she started showing signs of jaundice so they have had her under the light all day and will be under there all night until re-evaluating in the morning, though the nurse said that most likely that still won’t be enough time and she’ll need to be under it for several days. So she wears these dark eye patch things over her eyes. They did turn off the light for a few minutes though and removed the eye patches so we could see her whole face.

And that’s really where I get to the story I want to tell.

Her nurse raised up the bed cover and took the eye pieces off. While the top was off, I reached over and put my finger near her left palm. She grabbed it tighter than she’d done it thus far.

I would have held her little hand longer but that top doesn’t stay off too long. The bed is temperature and humidity regulated and I know it needs to stay closed. So after a little bit, I started to gently pull away a bit and she grabbed my finger harder and her face turned towards me and crumpled up for a split second like she was going to cry!

I melted. A few moments later, I started to pull away again and she grabbed my finger again. This happened three times total, but the face crumpling only happened the first time. Then I talked to her a bit and said that we had to close the top now, that we’d come see her later and I started to pull away again. This time she didn’t grab my finger.

It’s all overwhelming but slowly I am learning. I know this whole process is going to take time and it’s going to be more frustrating than me being on bed rest or even bed rest in the hospital was. But we’ll make it.

And here’s Steve with one of her diapers. They had a hard time digging these up, apparently, and need to get more, but they gave us one to take with us. Normally they’d just fold up a diaper or roll it down or something but they managed to find these which should be more comfy for her.

And much thanks to all the visitors we had today! Great to see you all and sorry for harassing you with the camera. As a warning to future visitors, I plan to get your picture – Kayleigh’s going to have lots of pictures of the time she was in the NICU, including her visitors, in her baby book!
Karen, April, Michelle, Erin, Jim, Sandy, Jon – thanks all of you for coming!