Puchku, this is how I fondly call you now that you are 4 months old. Now you are all chubby and cute and bubbly most of the time. But you came with your own set of problems.
On the 7th day itself, you had to be admitted to the hospital because of high jaundice levels. You recovered quite quickly from that though. After that we traveled to Mangalore and then you had your very own cradling and naming ceremony. Right after that, in a few days your dad traveled to Dubai for work and then - thats when the calamity struck.
You reduced feeding and went into a comatose kind of state for a long stretch. I just thought that you were doing your nights. You used to feed a bit in the day time but went for long stretches w/o feed at nights. We went to the doctor for a quick checkup and he just examined your laboured breathing and diagnosed you with severe pneumonia. I should have seen the signs. I am sorry for not being able to recognise them. I haven't stopped chiding myself about it yet. I cannot even begin to fathom about what would have happened if we were even a few hours late in going to the doc.
Already even at this point, the doctor had said that he could not give us any hope. He had to give you a pretty strong dose of antibiotics, because both of your lungs were completely infected. Moreover you hadn't responded to a milder shot. You were in the NICU on a strict "No Oral" treatment. Your glucose levels were maintained thru an IV and medications also. I hated the fact that I cudnt breastfeed you. I was not even allowed to touch you until 3 days. I was allowed inside the NICU just to look at you :( that too only once in 4 - 5 hrs or so. I would ask the nurses each time about your progress, hoping to catch a positive note from their voice. But they are advised by the doctors not to reveal anything and they would only say "He's fine now".
The "now" part is what I began to dread. It could only mean that they were not hopeful about the future. What else could it stand for ? Meanwhile there were other petite and premie babies struggling in the NICU at the same time. Believe me, the NICU is not a pretty sight :( Its the worse thing to see small tiny lives struggling with their small bodies. To top all this scare and lack of information, another premie decided to say goodbye to the world in that NICU !! Thankfully the doc had allowed me to breastfeed you after the 3 days, which the nurses said was a good sign. Otherwise, I would have collapsed with the news of the other baby's death !!! It was just horrible :(
You were a fighter for sure. And I believe you will always be. You recovered and they moved you to a ward room. We shifted you to a hospital nearer to our house and you had to get a central line IV done. This was because all your hands and feet were already punctured to find a vein and they had run out of spots to prick you on and they had to give the medicines only thru IV. It was pathetic to see all your wrists and legs having tiny holes (dried up punctures). The doctor who did your central IV somehow managed to find a good central line soon and was able to get you out of the OT in a couple of hrs. Until then, I just couldn't sit in a single place. I was pacing up and down the length of the corridor.
After that came another set of issues. Your breastfeeding returned to normal and you had to be kept swaddled all the time lest you pull out the IV line while moving your hands. This led to you getting addicted to the swaddling to fall asleep. More than that, you developed severe rashes on your inner thighs and diaper area, and also under your neck. Most of this was due to the strong antibiotics that you were administered and the rest was because of no air flow. This one took a couple of months to heal, after being discharged from the hospital. Before subsiding, it reached a level, where skin started to peel off from your thighs. However, you wouldn't complain or cry when being cleaned or bathed with warm water. I admire you for that strength to tolerate the pain.
During this time, I also started thinking a lot about the way your tongue was formed. I had noticed it before (when you were born) that your tongue was more attached to your lower palate than other peoples tongues are. However I was not aware that it was a "condition" to be looked into. During your stay at the hospital, the doc casually mentioned that you have a tongue-tie and thats the first time I had heard the term, but I instantly connected the two. He said that you might have problems when you start to speak, that you might not be able to utter a few syllables easily and that you would require another surgery - so to speak - to release the tongue tie. Hopefully this would be your last visit to the hospital. I wouldn't wish for you to come under the knife ever in your life !!
You have emerged from all these problems and turned into a beautiful baby. You cry a lot when you are hungry and cry more when you are sleepy. But you don't wanna sleep easily. You sniffle and whimper until the last moment of falling asleep. You hate being left alone on the floor. You love being carried and moved about. You love being made to stand and sit. You hate the lying down position. You have started turning onto your side, but you are showing no signs of rolling onto your tummy.
I have learnt a lot from you in these past few months. You have shown the strength that most of us adults lack. We crib for silly reasons where the situations are easily fixable. You have been amazing through the 4.5 months of your life. I believe that you will be able to carry forward this strength throughout your life. ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS stay strong and content. You have been a winner so far and I wish for you to always be one. LOVE YOU puchku !!!
