Some Peace and Quiet

Journeys take many forms over the course of life - spiritual, cultural, and sometimes physical. Journeys for us over the course of the last few weeks have included a couple of doosies. We've become parents, I've started a new career, Stacie has ended (or at least paused) her career, we've spent time in a place no parent ever wishes to go, and we made a 1,200 mile trek half way across the USA. It definitely seems to be a time of new journeys for us.

And now that I've got a little peace and quiet, I'd like to share some to share some of them.

Starting just days after Sammie entrance in this world (and what an entrance) our family got a little startled by her admission to the newborn ICU at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. Problems with her O2 saturation clued the neonatal nurses on a difficulty with Sammie's breathing. From there she was whisked up one floor to the NICU and started on oxygen, an IV, and sensors galore.


A feeding tube was put down and that first night she fought the nurse for 10 minutes while he tried to get enough blood from a prick on her foot to do blood sugar test. Our nurse that night, Jeremy, was so helpful in helping us to understand and spent a lot of time explaining and reassuring us that everything was okay.

Over a few days of tests and trials, they finally determined that her low oxygen saturation was being caused by her holding her breath while experiencing reflux. So, after 10 days, we finally got to take her home, on oxygen and on a monitor.

In the end, our experience at the NICU was both painful and calming - painful having to leave your daughter at the hospital every night that you went home, not being able to take her with us; and calming because of all we learned while we were there. The nurses all did such a wonderful job of teaching us and helping us to be prepared for Sammie to come home. We had to take extra time to learn infant CPR and to review page by page the book they give to all new parents.

Plenty of opportunites to learn came after we got her home. While we had a chance to bathe her in the NICU, our first experience at home was a real treat, mostly because Sammie hated it. In the end, she didn't drown and she came out clean. She likes them a lot more now, probably cause we're doing a better job.

And the story will remain there for now. More to come with our next installment, which will definitely be faster than a month...I hope.