Bonding with Baby P
Happy 2nd Day on Earth Baby P!
Hello everyone and thank you for your patience with these updates.
TLDR:
Baby P is named – name to be announced soon.
He is stable as we await his major surgery – which is scheduled for 7 a.m. this coming Tuesday 7/15. Recovery time will be over a week, but hopefully less than three.
Joyce is discharged from St. Josephs after they kept her a second night – a blessing since she got to be much closer to Baby P while still having an actual bed.
Joyce is recovering well and in great shape – her fitness and determined oversight of Baby P have been noted and complemented by all visiting hospital staff and her loving husband.
Sara Ruiz, Joyce’s good friend, has been with us since Baby P’s delivery – traveling all the way from Monterey and suspending her life with her three kids and loving husband to be here with us – which has been a godsend and a tremendous blessing. We could never thank Sara enough. Thank you forever, Sara.
More Deets:
Baby P had his breathing tube removed and came off the ventilator yesterday. He sprang to life with the tube removed. He can kick like a drunken mule and frequently kicks and squirms to such an extent as to send his dizzying array of monitors into a beeping frenzy. The nurse will have to reset them afterwards and the parameters for the alarms has thankfully now been updated to allow for most of Baby P’s vigorous squirming and relentless desire to move. That is for when he is awake. When he conks out; however, he is gone. A heavy sleeper – especially when on Joyce – which thankfully she has been able to hold him on two long occasions as of this writing.
Being at CHOC is nothing short of phenomenal – and the holding of Baby P is the perfect time to take a moment to show you why. Moving a baby that is hooked to so many necessary life saving things is tough work. There are at least a dozen wires running to him and it takes a two person team to stop what they are doing, carefully position the chaos of wires, hoist the floppy cargo into the air while attending to the slack in the wires beforecarefully placing him upon the eagerly awaiting mother. The whole ordeal has to be planned, support arranged and a tremendous amount of time invested. In a setting where you didn’t value the mother/child bond, the benefits to mom in terms of stimulating milk production, the benefits to dad of seeing both mother and son so unbelievably happy / so blissful in a setting that has been so difficult – if you didn’t value those things it would be far easier to just skip it and likely no one would ever complain. But these are truly moments we all will remember for the rest of our lives and here is the kicker: the incredible nurse team we have had do not have to be requested to let this happen – they insist on it happening – and they advocate to the doctors and the rest of the team on it happening. It is wonderful and this kind of extra effort persists across our baby’s care.
It has felt like a lifetime awaiting his surgery date though has given us an opportunity to enjoy our baby boy. He’s incredible and strong. He’s cooperative with all of the nurses check ins on him. He squirms and then settles quickly. Having this time with him has been reassuring and beyond beautiful. He’s a complete joy.
So here’s a quick shout out to our first nurses (we like our doctors too, and we can shout them out later):
Day shift one – Caitlin – I’m probably not spelling her name correctly – Caitlin was a phenomenal professional – each and every movement was so efficient as she dealt with the most chaotic time in the NICU so far – arrival and initial stabilization.
Night shift one – Kristi – Kriti had a heck of a lot of charting to do and was so patient with us and the incredible boy. Kristi – a Disney enthusiast – doesn’t like the teacups anymore – which honestly brings up a point – who likes the teacup ride a Disneyland? It’s awful.
Day shift two – Leanne – Leanne is a superhero and when the nursing supervisor came in – it was hard to avoid demanding an immediate raise for Leanne to at least double her current compensation. Leanne was patient, kind and unbelievably tolerant. Having a diverse range of personalities in the room – Leanne navigated the ongoing medical issues while also brokering peace in the room during the tense name negotiations.Additionally, Leanne got Baby P delivered to Joyce for his first time being held. We are forever indebted to Leanne.
Night shift two – Katrina – Baby P had an easy night – which is thanks to the incredible nursing staff and their ability to stabilize Baby P so well. Baby P does go through a CARES routine every 4 hours. This routine involves changing his diaper. Something Baby P detests. He rises from his slumber like a menace – and moves in for the attack – kicking and squirming – he has more than once placed his heel in poop. Besides those couple of wake ups, Katrina kept Baby P asleep and content – incredible.
Day shift three – Jacque – Jacque has a phenomenal disposition – down to earth, reassuring, patient (like all the nurses) – Jaque helped keep the boat on an even keel and delivered Baby P for his second holding. She additionally was very tolerant during Donavon’s first visit and helped reduce some of the testing that Baby P has to endure regularly.
Summary: Nurses are fantastic and the nurses in the NICU at CHOC are some of the best human beings I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Thank you all so much. I’m sorry in advance for misspelling your names.
PS.
Food review update time. In the last review some of you have responded with horror at my absolute take-down of the CHOC Café. I stand by the review. However, on one of the occasions of Joyce being wheeled from St. Joseph’s to CHOC and vise versa– a nosey orderly felt the need to opine that the Cafeteria at CHOC is far superior to St Joesphs and I was ignorant.
Knowing my ignorance in this moment – where was the cafeteria? Why hadn’t I found it? Was it lack of sleep? – So once informed, I set off as soon as possible (mom happy and baby stable) to find the cafeteria – which happened to be the morning of the second day – I proceeded to have my next three meals there, studying the patterns and movement of the place.
Breakfast:
I approached the cafeteria line with great anticipation – I had heard specifically that the breakfast burritos were amazing. As I saw the trays with choices to comb through I broke into a dance.
Filling options:
Portugues Sausage
Bacon
Sausage
Eggs
Eggs with Chorizo
Cheese
Tater Tots
Home Style Potatoes
Yes, dear reader, endless burrito combinations. Nothing could make me more excited. I ordered quickly and filled up cups of the green salsa that was deliciously fire roasted and more adventurously spicy than I had anticipated at a hospital cafeteria. How bold of them! I thought as I crunched through my first bite of burrito. It was pure elation.
The bacon in the preparation of the burrito process was lovinglyremoved from the tray and placed upon a cutting board – I thought this curious, but was immediately overcome with wonderment as they chopped the extra crispy bacon into small pieces. This resulted in specs of crunchy bacon in each and every bite – something rivaled by the small pieces of chorizo – precooked with the egg that was liberally spread through the burrito’s core. Mixed with this were the most perfectly crispy tater tots – I’ll admit here that I removed one or two from the burrito just for the delight of munching on them separately – that my friends is how well each and every component of the burrito was made.
And unlike the hamburger the night before -where one amazing patty a hamburger does not make. Rest assured that in this case – from many amazing ingredients an even more amazing burrito emerges.
As I finished the burrito – the memories of St. Josephs cafeteria fled from my mind – I would eat all my meals here today I thought – this will be the single best day of hospital food in human history. I was here for it. From the inside of the hospital walls, I could not see the dark clouds on the horizon…
Lunch:
Tortellini in Alfredo Sauce
Brussel Sprouts
Option not taken – Pineapple Salmon
At lunch, I returned to find some models of the food options arranged in plastic display cases out front of the cafeteria.
As a lover of tortellini, I nearly squealed in the middle of the children’s hospital with delight – but maintained a proper sense of decorum. Still yourself, I thought, be still, don’t give away your excitement.
I waited patiently in line and then saw the arrangement of traysfor which scoops may be taken. Sorrow made a quick pass at my high flying spirits – but I remained undeterred. I remembered the old adage – don’t judge a book by its cover – never a truerstatement could be applied to my hospital food journey so far – so I boldly went forward. Somewhat boldly actually – because the pineapple salmon was just too weird looking to try. Something I now regret – for upon returning to my table in the cafeteria I was immediately disappointed by my selections.
The tortellini and alfredo sauce was uninspired. The sauce was all cream and little flavor – the cheese tortellini all package and no filling. It was like a partially cooked dough with flavorless cheese submerged in a thick bath of coffee creamer. Sadness swept over me.
The Brussel sprouts were going to be my reprieve but when I bit into them I found them somehow dry. Where crispness and some char are my favorite Brussel attributes – these ones were instead flavored in a way that leads one to expect that they were first boiled and then dried in the Sahara. Thankfully that cafeteria is equipped with an array of sodas including a coke freestyle machine (a great choice) and I was able to blast this assortment of food down the esophagus like timbers adrift on a riverencountering an unmovable bridge and only once sufficient pressure builds up do they shoot through.
I returned to the room somber – but was reminded by my optimistic wife of the amazing burrito that morning. She is a strong and special woman – and come dinner time insisted that I try the cafeteria again – you must she stated – this is your purpose here.
So I boldly went forth and returned to the hospital to find:
Brussel Sprouts. Tortellini (which had run out and been replaced by Penne). Pineapple Salmon. Couscous.
Not being one for the Cous, I perused other options – the salad bar, or fresh fruit – both of which look decent here at the CHOC Cafeteria – but dear reader rest assured you will be getting a review of neither. Then, thankfully, I saw the pizza in the corner– sitting on warming trays. Pizza it was. Nobody by this point was getting the daily special menu options -but several were awaiting their chance for a slice. I selected sausage and pepperoni and nearly ran to my seat.
The cafeteria completely redeemed itself. I wolfed the pizza down and ran back to the room. “rejoice!” I shouted into the quite NICU room, “the cafeteria has delivered again!” The pizza is like a perfectly cooked Digorno. But in a very specific way, I remember one night I had returned from the bar famished and wiped out. It was a dangerous time to cook a DiGorno given that I was likely to pass out before it was completed – but I set extra alarms to ensure that pizza would get its chance to conquer my hunger and it did not disappoint. This pizza was like that one on steroids. The pizza dough was light and fluffy in the perfect way – leading to a crust that was crunchy but not overly so or burnt. The cheese and toppings gracefully kissed with browning and the light upturned edges of the pepperoni hinting that the heat was just enough to bring it to perfection but shy of drying it out. Each bite held together nicely, the toppings of the pizza did not try to abandon the slice with each bite. It was a revelation and in no small part played its roll in our very good, no issue Friday to Saturday night.
That’s it friends. The CHOC cafeteria – unlike the Café – it is pretty dang good. Just good enough to be dangerous – I will venture back – but each time I will be concerned about a complete and total let down. Tonight is spaghetti and meatballs. Fingers crossed.