Shaun & Britnie: NICU

We spent Thursday and Friday in the hospital and were set to be sent home on Saturday. In the early morning Saturday my nurse came in to do Jeremiah's vitals just as they had done ever few hours for the past 2 days. She noticed he was "grunting" a little bit while breathing and she said that she wanted to call the pediatrician just to let him know before we were sent home.

A couple hours later the pediatrician came by to see him. He ordered some blood tests to be done and checked him out. He said physically he looked wonderful and even mentioned getting our car seat and things ready to go...pending the blood results.

About an hour later our plans were turned upside down when the pediatrician came to tell us the results.

His CRP (C-reactive protein) levels came back extremely high. Typically they should be 10 or below and his was 51. The CRP is a protein associated with inflammation in the body and could possibly mean a major infection. Most likely the reason this number was so high was because of the major bruise he had received from the birth. However, they need to make sure that is is not something much more serious.

Poor baby's purple bruise and major cone head.

He told us that within the next 30 minutes Jeremiah would be taken to the NICU and he would stay for a minimum of 2 nights and 3 days. If after 48 hours of antibiotics his CRP number goes down then we would know it was in fact the bruise and he would be sent home.
Immediately I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn't fathom going home without my little boy.
We were so scared and sad to see him go and I will NEVER forget walking into that NICU and seeing my precious, perfect baby hooked up to all kinds of machines and with an IV coming out of the top of his head.

We spent the next 2.5 days breastfeeding and pumping every 3 hours, cuddling him in between, and crying all the way to the car each night after his last feeding. We decided that in order to get through the next few days we would trust the Lord to protect him during the night and we would go home to try and get some rest. We came back first thing in the mornings to give him his first feeding.