The Fam

Zayne Louis arrived at 12:57 AM on Friday, the 20th of May. He weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces, and was 18 1/2 inches long.

The birth itself was rather tense for The Mom and I. When Zayne crowned and began to come out, he had a loop of cord around his neck, and the doctor began to get excited, saying that we were “abrupting”. After he was delivered, he was placed on Mom’s chest for only a moment before he was whisked to the corner where several nurses began to work on him at once. At this point, he was deathly grey, and hadn’t moved or breathed on his own yet. He began to get some color after some vigorous massaging, and was given oxygen. I think that may have been the point when I finally remembered to breathe.

Zayne was moved to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) almost immediately. I got to follow and watch while they hooked him to seemingly every piece of equipment available, plus a few brought in for good measure. It turned out that it was a good thing that he hadn’t taken a breath during delivery, as the abruption caused extra bleeding that would have harmed his lungs if he’d taken it in. In the end, all Zayne really needed was a device called CPAP. This device is used primarily for people that have sleep apnea. It basically provides a little bit of positive pressure to make taking in a breath easier.

If you look at the pictures (link on the right), you’ll see that Zayne had way more than just the CPAP hanging off his little body. Almost everything else is just to monitor his condition - he was never really in need of “intensive” care. The CPAP made it impossible for him to feed normally, so an IV was used to keep his blood sugar up. It looks worse than it was, but to The Mom and I, it looked horrible.

Over the course of the next couple of days, Zayne was weaned off of the CPAP onto a low setting of oxygen. Once this happened, he could start feeding normally. Every time he ate well, they turned down his IV until they were able to remove it completely. By Sunday, we were able to bring the little guy home.

I must give a huge “Thanks” to all of the doctors and nurses we worked with in the couple of days Zayne was in the NICU. Every single one was kind and helpful, and willing to take the time to answer our silly questions and assure us that everything was going to be OK. Having a baby in the NICU is tough, but I felt completely assured that he was getting the absolute best care possible.