Auntie Stephanie and the Dream Team

On the fourth day after Dane was born, he was transferred over to Brenner's Children's Hospital so that they could have him in the same hospital as the ENT department that would be working with him.  The transport team came in with this big clear incubator stretcher, and then asked Andrew and I to give Dane a big kiss before they left.  It was kind of scary because it felt like she was asking us to kiss him goodbye in case something happened to him.  I kissed his face and Andrew kissed his "piggies", or what we call our children's feet. 

It was a somber car ride for us to the new hospital just a few minutes away, but once we got there, we turned a major corner.  We went from feeling like he was clinging to life to feeling like everything just may turn out fine after all.  I think it was Dawn and his "Auntie Stephanie".

Dawn is a NICU nurse that has been there for 31 years, and she was there when Dane first arrived.  Just the way that she touched him and played with him was so different from the careful handling he received over at Forsyth.  It was as if he was not nearly as fragile as we thought, and the environment was noisy-ish, bustling, lively.  Nurses were talking and laughing, it just had a different vibe about it.  Dawn asked me if I wanted to hold him, and I tried to say no since he had just made a trip from one hospital to another and I didn't know if he was okay, but she did not allow it.  She said, " Sit down.  He will be fine.  I've been here for a long time so if something goes wrong I'll just fix it!"  With that, I sat down and held him and have held him nearly every day since then. 

My friend Arika said they are more aggressive with the care the babies get at Brenner's, and she wasn't lying.  Almost immediately they upped the amount of milk he was getting, and kept upping it almost every two days or so, and then added a calorie enhancer to make it even more fattening.  As a result he started putting some meat on those little bones and becoming calmer and happier.  When he arrived he was 4 lbs and 13 oz, and after a week, he started gaining ounces at a time.  He was very stable, no heart rate drops, or breathing difficulties.

Auntie Stephanie is the second great blessing after Dawn, her given name being Stephanie Smith Bowman, and she treats my child like her own.  When you have to go home and leave your baby behind, you want to know that someone like her is taking care of him.  She gives him baths all of the time, takes him out and holds him when he's crying and I'm not there, is extremely caring and nurturing, and is just generally one of his second moms.  She is another one that pushed my comfort zone a little with handling Dane, and for that again I am really grateful.  She said she felt like Dane was sent there for her, but I felt like she was sent there for me!  God was definitely present there.



There is a type of care that preemies can get from parents that is research based and is extremely beneficial, called Kangaroo care.  Basically, the baby is unwrapped and stripped down to just a diaper, and the mother wears something that can be opened up so that the child can be placed heart to heart and skin to skin.  They can sync up heartbeats, go fast asleep, and conserve energy that they then use for growing and gaining weight.  They need less oxygen, have better emotional development, and shorter stays.  I was too scared at first because of his ventilator tube and all of his other acoutrements, but Stephanie put me at ease and I kangaroo held Dane, and it was life changing for me.  To hold your baby like that and feel their warm body next to yours, and snuggle them like that while they sleep is the way it is meant to be. 

He finally felt 100% like he was my baby.