After spending a nice day with the family on Sunday, Monday morning after getting both kids to school, I went on down to the hospital to hang with Doug & Morgan. I got to go in and talk to and pet on Martin and check out all of his accoutrements. It was really hard for me to leave him alone and sweetly bundled, because I like to investigate and see all the baby parts of legs, toes, feet, etc. He had a little bit of crusty residue on his face, so we got a washcloth from the nurse and wiped him up a little. And we got some socks to cover his hands, because his sharp nails were cutting his face and they were out of mittens. He has the tiniest, longest, thinnest fingers! They look like tiny doll fingers. I joked with him about how his Aunt Andi was there and “I’m a picker, so look out! I’m going to mess with you! You Daddy is terrified of me and tweezers”
After putting Dellaina on the bus dark and early Tuesday morning, Wyatt & I headed down to the hospital to hang with Doug & Morgan while baby Martin was in surgery. I told Wyatt we were going to go entertain them and he said, “I don’t know if I’ll entertain them, buuuut I’ll do some crazy stuff” perfect. We met them on the way to have breakfast, so we joined them in the cafeteria and took a tour of some of the cooler parts of the hospital, like the fish tank and
the bubble wall…
it was a wall of names of monetary donors to the hospital and projects images behind it, depending on the buttons you push. Wyatt had a blast running up and pushing them and running back to sit and watch. It would give different facts about the animals, etc.
Saturday evening, we were planning to go over to Emily, Daniel & Samuel’s current place of residence (they close on their house on Monday!): Mimzy and GPa’s house! We were all ready to walk out the door when, while I’m drying my hair, I happen to glance up at the ceiling in the hallway and see:
Ummm, Greg!! Sooo, Greg takes off his nice button up shirt and climbs up into the attic to investigate. The drain pan is completely full and obviously overflowing. We get our fish tank set up and siphon out a good bit of the water and the kids and I go on, leaving Greg to investigate the problem. We have a great evening visiting and Doug & Morgan come up from the hospital to hang out, too! We ordered pizza and just let the kids play. We gave D&M the new pillow for Martin. Thanks to Hollie Jo’s sweet gifts to my kiddos that they lugged around for years whenever we travelled and still sleep with each night, I like to get each of the cousins/nieces/nephews one of their own. 
Finally, on Sunday we load up as a family to go down to the hospital so that Greg can meet Martin for the first time! Dellaina and Wyatt were thouroughly entertained as Greg & I each took a turn going in to visit. I’d shown Dellaina pictures and video and she’d remark “this is how I get to see him: in pictures” very acceptingly. I know they are excited to get to meet him one day soon, too.
I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that scrawny leg and knobby knees poking out when I walked up! it meant I had free reign to poke around on him and I immediately snatched his sock off to check out his monkey toes! Doug & I were investigating all of the lines and his nasal cannula kept slipping sideways on his face and I was looking and didn’t see any of the gauges showing Oxygen levels, so Doug asked the nurse if his oxygen was turned on and she looked at him and laughed and asked, “what kind of question is that?!” And he remarked, he thought they were trying to wean him off and we didn’t notice any of the gauges registering a level so it was a legitimate question! I wanted to smack her, even though, I know she didn’t mean it the way it came out. She showed me a plastic bottle that was bubbling and somehow administering a moist oxygen?!
We all looked so spiffy, we took a few family photos! Oops, still zoomed in!
fogging up…
Thursday after dropping the kids off at school and going for my run and watering the plants, I load up and head down to the hospital (had to wait out the morning school traffic anyway). I had every intention of getting to hold Martin for the first time. However…when I got there, a woman from a research study D&M are participating in was there. Morgan was trying to get Doug up so they could go to a car seat class at 11:00, so I worked on waking him up. They were scheduled to be sent home! Right as they are getting ready to walk out the door, the nurse and Nurse Practitioner come in (had already been in once, but asked to wait until after the research lady finished conducting her “observations” which were very involved and hands-on, if you ask me!) and were going to take out Martin’s final tubes that were in him – his external lead wires that were directly attached to his heart. It was kind of a background thing, without really paying attention to what was actually going on. I saw her pull the blue cords that were sticking out of his belly on the right side up, so that she could cut something (that was holding it in place, I assume) and then some untwisting, straightening and pulling out, pop! done. Then, BAM, within 20-30 seconds, Martin’s heart rate jumps WAY up to 255!! They start bustling around and call for the charge nurse and some ice and we’re all still watching, waiting for this number to drop back down…and it’s just not. Martin doesn’t look overly distressed; he’s fussy, but not just wailing or looking overly exerted. He’s still pink and warm, but that glaring number is just holding there, while more phone calls are being made and the bag of ice that’s been brought is slammed onto his mouth and he’s smacked and smothered with it (trying to activate his vagus nerve, which slows the heart rate as the doctor that comes into takes time to explain – “I know this looks gruesome, but we are trying to….and we have to basically make him think he’s drowning” The doctor was very calm and collected and taking time to fill Doug & Morgan in about what’s going on and they are very controlled and while it’s a decent thing to do, they are very much, “ok, fine, do it, don’t take the time to explain it to me, be doing whatever you need to be doing right now, it’s ok! We’ve already watched this happen very roughly a few times” it’s a very intense time and seemed to drag on forever and right as they are discussing taking him back over to the cardiac unit, there’s pointing and emphasis, “it’s dropping!” And it’s down to 176, which is still high, but much better! So…since he had a “history” of this episode happening once before, the night after the surgery (very brief and he self-corrected) they said, “obviously, you’re not going home today” and they wanted to put an IV port back in, so that they would have access to push meds if they needed to, should it happen again. They decided to take him back to a different room to get the IV put in and we’d all kept it together during the whole episode, now that they room had cleared and it was quiet, we had our breakdown together. They seemed to have him for a long time and Morgan & I were both watching the clock, imagining what could be happening when finally they bring him back and just had some difficulty getting the IV in. He’s bandaged on his left hand where they’d attempted unsuccessfully and then has a large shield again on his right hand. An EKG was ordered and the portable machine came with the technician to measure (but he basically said now that he was back more normal, it wouldn’t really show much) Morgan is having to pump at this time. And then a hospital customer service rep comes by to discuss their stay, since they had been scheduled to leave. I felt like she was very uninformed and naïve to the situation and should have taken a few more moments to familiarize herself with their specific situation – it would have allowed for more direct questions and less explanations. she was nice and they had a big discussion about things that had been great and others that needed improvement. Martin was starting to get a little fussy and I got to pet on him and sing/hum to him and felt good about our bonding time. I informed him that he know owed me a better visit, but he must have known his parents weren’t quite ready to be pushed out the door just yet.
After talking to dad later, I felt better about the incident overall as a direct result of the leads that had been pulled out. They are directly attached to the nodes in the heart – which are what fire to cause the heart to contract/beat, so pulling those out can agitate those nodes and it makes more sense and felt better that it wasn’t just something that could happen, unknowingly, on it’s own – which was a terrifying concept to me to think of going home without monitors to let you know! And also, that he’d basically had a stress test, and passed! His heart rate was elevated and he didn’t pass out or turn blue or show distress, etc. All good things; he managed the incident.
Doug & Morgan got to go home on Saturday afternoon. 
My friend, Leah, from nursing school worked on Friday night and helped give Martin a bath to get him squeaky clean for all of the going and coming home pictures! They have been adjusting to the rigorous, tiresome, sleepless routine of caring for a newborn, but compounded by Martin’s special circumstances. He’s feeding every 3 hours and he’s taking more and more from the bottle, but any left over, they have to put into the bag to feed via NG tube and wait for it to get done and then wash it out and get it ready for the next time. Plus, Morgan is pumping, so the 3 hours is diminished nearly in half by the length and involvement of the routine. 
They had a follow up appointment on Monday back at Egleston with the pediatric cardiac surgeon and it went really well! They also had a pediatrician appointment in Athens. After an ordeal with trying to schedule an appointment with one doctor who came highly recommended, but the staff was very snooty and rudely remarked, “our moms come meet the physician before the baby is born” and made Morgan burst out crying insisting “I’m a good mom!” and then Doug calling back to cuss her out for being such a condescending prick. Made me so angry to hear the story from mom that I wanted to call someone up and fill them in that they had been slightly busy with scheduling all of the other appointments with people with much higher degrees that were much more competent and skilled at actually caring for their child and saving his life. Emily & I discussed how the visit to meet the pediatrician is usually something to make the parents feel better about their choice – it’s like an interview, it’s not something the pediatrician really requires, usually.
Anyway, it’s a wild ride and we are all so thankful for the love, support and care of so, so many. Thank you!
Art supplies, Littlest Pet Shop, jewelry, pants (some already hemmed, thanks Aunt Morgan!!), finger nail polish, voice activated password journal with MP3 and speaker attachments (she had memorized the entire description from a magazine and Granny found it at the last minute!) a Fur Real Cat, Lollaloopsy doll – the artist, of course – and a new, bigger bike were among the choice gifts this year. Now she no longer looks like the bear at the circus riding the tiny bike. She was a little nervous still at first with the bigger size, but has gotten more comfortable with it since. And the small adult sized helmet fits her head nicely!
