Journal series - Day 2

• If you’re just joining, I am doing a little journal series of our time in the hospital when Mr. Green had his open heart surgery to fix his heart defects that were discovered in utero. These are the thoughts, feelings, and emotions I had while there and the different situations we were in. I journaled every day we were there so I could look back and remember.

Day 2:

Mr. Green’s first night went pretty well overall, just a little rough to begin with. His oxygen started desaturating lower than he should’ve (80s) but they wondered if it was a combination of: the position he was in was causing him pain and he was getting agitated with the breathing tube. So, they weren’t able to wean him off the oxygen as they had hoped they would. So they bumped up his oxygen a little to help get him back on track. At one point his oxygen machine beeped, scared him, which then caused more beeps. So far this morning he has been doing great, they did an albuterol treatment and used a machine to help break up the gunk in his lungs and chest from being on bypass and then they will work towards getting him extubated. The plan right now is to extubate sometime early afternoon! We were able to sit in during morning rounds where they discussed everything about his care and what next steps are going to be. It was very cool and informative to be a part of, the staff is so great at asking us if we have any questions, informing us on everything and really making us feel like we’re a part of his care team. He FINALLY was extubated at 3:41pm and hearing him cry for the first time was almost like waiting for him to cry when he was first born. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t intubated for that long, but it seemed really long to us when we just wanted to hold our baby. His cry was very hoarse and raspy - but so wonderful to hear. They let him get settled with a high flow oxygen nasal cannula for a bit and then a little after 5pm began removing some other lines. He got his catheter removed at 5:30 and at 5:50 I FINALLY got to hold him! Longest 34 hours of my life! Now we’re waiting for night rounds to see if they will lower the oxygen a bit more and I can hopefully start to breastfeed again! (Nic also got to hold him, I didn’t hog him the whole time…) And seeing them together and knowing this bond that will forever be unique to the two of them in our family, was such a beautiful sight.