the story of bridget hazel

on march twenty sixth,

at exactly nine fourteen in the morning,

our family officially became a family of five.

bridget hazel fiske came into the world weighing seven pounds and one ounce,
and she was nineteen inches long.

we instantly fell in love with her.

that afternoon, bridget got to meet her brother and sister for the very first time.

tennyson loved her, but mostly from afar, while enjoying the presents bridget had brought.

maggie loved her, mostly from as close as she could possibly get.
if we tried to pass bridget to somebody else, maggie would get furious and start shouting, "no! maggie do it!"

however, it wasn't long before we started getting concerned about bridget.
she hadn't been even remotely interested in eating for the entire day, and she was grunting with every breath she took.
i knew it was something that was an issue because every time a nurse came in, the first thing they asked was "is she still grunting?" and then "has she tried eating yet?"

 around four o'clock that afternoon, the nurses decided we should send bridget to the nursery for observation.

while she was in the nursery, the pediatrician came to visit.
in order to help her breath better, the pediatrician decided to put bridget under an oxygen hood.
she was also given an iv since it would be dangerous for her to try eating when she was working so hard to breathe.
i hated that she had to be in the nursery and couldn't be in my room with me.
and i hated that i wasn't able to hold her.
but i could see how much the oxygen hood was helping, and it was clear that the nursery was the best place for her to be.

the next morning, bridget hadn't improved.
when we removed the hood for even the briefest of minutes, her stats would drop back dangerously low, and it became clear that this was more of an issue than just her lungs not quite being ready.

the pediatrician took an x-ray of her lungs which showed that bridget had congenital pneumonia, and the decision was made that she needed to be brought to the nicu at the hospital across town.
the nicu would be able to treat her with antibiotics and give her a cpap which would help her breathe much better than the oxygen hood would.
the news devastated me.
it was hard enough having her in the nursery, i was having a hard time knowing that i'd be stuck at a different hospital.

but i was once again blessed to have a wonderful nurse who talked to the doctors for me and i was allowed a four hour leave of absence that night to visit her.

the next few hours were nothing short of a whirlwind.
the transport team came and took bridget to the nicu,
and mike and i followed not long after.

not even five seconds into our visit to the nicu, we knew our baby was in the right place.

her stats were already better, the nurses took no time putting a little bow in her hair, and the isolette looked so much more comfortable than the oxygen hood.
plus, i was able to briefly hold her again.

it was agonizing not being able to hold bridget when she was under the oxygen hood,

and those five minutes i got with her were so sweet and so needed.

after our brief visit, mike brought me back to my hospital room, and i spent the night working on recovering so that i could get discharged as soon as possible the next morning.

once i was discharged, mike and i made our way back over the nicu to visit bridget.

it was a scary morning.

bridget was teetering on the edge of either becoming a whole lot better, or becoming a whole lot worse.
and the doctors really weren't sure which direction she was going to tip.
we sat there listening to what could potentially happen that afternoon if we couldn't get bridget on lower levels of oxygen, and even now i am so elated that bridget did start getting better that afternoon and we were able to avoid going down what would have been a pretty scary path.

as her lungs got stronger, and as the pneumonia started to clear, it just became a waiting game before she could be discharged.

we were waiting for her to come off her oxygen.

we were waiting for her to get up to full feedings.

we were waiting for her jaundice to go away.

we were waiting for her antibiotic treatments to end.

at the end of all that waiting, we got the biggest blessing of all.

we were able to bring bridget home.

it was the longest week of my life,
and having one of my kids spend that long in the hospital is something i hope i never have to repeat.
but we feel incredibly blessed that we had such wonderful nurses and doctors looking after her, that we were able to visit as often as we did, and that it was only a week long stay.

since she has been home, she has been doing wonderfully.
and besides the fact that she never wants to be put down,
she might just be my easiest baby yet.