April 9th - Ryan's Second Day in the NICU

After I was woken up at 4am by my nurse I decided to head down to the NICU to see Ryan. He hadn't changed from the night before. Still grunting and working hard to breath. It was so hard to see him laying there and not be able to pick him up and cuddle him.

Eric and I went back down to the NICU around 9 after the nurses change of shift. Ryan was just hanging out and was wide awake. We finally remembered the camera and got a few pictures of him.

Around 11:30 my mom came by with the kids and I brought her into the NICU with me to visit with Ryan. He was getting close to 24 hours old and his "honeymoon" period was ending. He was still working hard to breathe and he started needing some oxygen. His nurse let me hold Ryan for a little while he got some oxygen by a mask, but by the time that I had to put him back he was needing more oxygen and they made the decision to put him under the oxygen hood.

Eric and I went back to the NICU around 4 to visit with Ryan. He was having a hard time calming down after they had changed his diaper so we didn't stay long. He was dropping his oxygen saturation everytime he was touched or there was too much noise around him. It was probably one of the hardest afternoons. All I wanted to do was touch and hold my baby and I couldn't because it made things harder for him. We didn't stay long that visit because it was so hard to just sit there quietly and not touch him.

When we went back down at 8pm they had covered his oxygen hood with a blanket to help block out the light and noise. All we could see was his little belly and see how hard he was working to breath. He looked like a poor panting puppy. He was breathing so fast and still making a grunting sound.

That night I realized that I needed to take care of myself and needed to sleep. So I was decided to not go back down to see Ryan late that night and instead go to bed and try to get as much sleep as possible.