The UNMC NICU or the place I love to never be again

So Evie is in the NICU with a CPAP on her face. The first time I see her, I don't know how to react. I don't even know if they are going to let me hold her.
The NICU, I've heard described is a place where Angels live. It's very true. The NICU is inherently a sad place, as soon as you sign in and walk in, it's a different feeling. It's very quiet and dark and you try not to look around too much because you don't want to see just how tiny that baby in the plastic box is, or how many things they have coming out of their body. They have nice separate little rooms with a chair or two and a fridge and a little TV.
And they have the best nurses in the world. I don't know how they work there. It is the saddest place ever, but they are some of the happiest optimistic people I have ever met. Every nurse we had was not only knowledgeable, but compassionate.
There were two in particular that rocked our world. Amy, Evie's night nurse, who taught us everything there was to know about taking care of a baby. The daytime nurses usually had a lot to do, so they would change Evie's diapers or do things like clean her up or put her back in the incubator, or change her clothes. Amy wouldn't do that for us. She would make us do it, she would stand behind us and be there for us and give us tips, but she wouldn't do it for us. She taught us to read the monitors, and then took the monitors away and taught us how to listen to our baby. No matter what bad thing conspired during the day we knew if we could make it to the night, when Amy's shift started, she would sit and talk to us about it, make us feel better, and teach us what to do to help Evelynn get better faster. She was a saint. She pulled strings to get us one of the NICU parents rooms, usually reserved for NICU parents who were from out of town. When we were told that I was getting discharged from the hospital and would have to go home without my baby, Amy found us a place to stay in the hospital so we didn't have to leave her.
The other nurse that really helped us, well me really was our day nurse Anna. Anna taught me how to breastfeed, she wouldn't let me give up. The other nurses would let me do it for five seconds before the would let me give her the bottle of formula. Anna sat with me for what seemed like hours and reassured me that I was doing it right and she was getting something. I probably would have not been a breast feeding mom if it wasn't for Anna.
So here is a list of what happened, in order, to keep us in the NICU for four days. First she had the trouble breathing and had to be on the CPAP and because they were afraid she hiccuped her own poop, she had to have 48 hours of antibiotics (at least until the blood cultures came back) and a chest x-ray to see if the poop had gotten into her lungs. Also, because her vein's were "sticky" and after sticking her about 100 times to put in an IV (thank GOD I wasn't there for that, Seth was and it really tore him up) they decided to give her a UV, which is an IV thru her umbilical cord. And it required a minor surgery put in. About nine at night the first night, they determined that she had not inhaled the poop, but still had to run the full course of antibiotics until the blood cultures came back.
So while we waited for that, my lovely child started to get mad about her situation and started holding her breath while throwing fits. Anywhere else they would just blow in her face, in the NICU she was diagnosed with apnea and we were told that she couldn't go home until 48 hours after her last "episode".
When we woke up on the third day, close to our deadlines, she hadn't had an episode, the blood cultures came back clean and she was taken off the antibiotics, she was eating like a champ. When we came in they informed us that she was "severely" jaundice. Our peditrician, who by the way visited her EVERYDAY in the hospital, told us that it wasn't severe, it was NICU severe, which is a term we learned well. They are, understandably, much more cautious in the NICU.
When things got really bad, my bestest friend Pam, showed up, and sat with us in the NICU and tried to explain in calmer terms and positive terms what was going on. So that really helped. So she got put back in the incubator and put under a light to get the bilirubin out. Finally, Saturday morning, after I had gotten up at 5 to feed her, they called at 8 and told us to take her home. We couldn't get out of there fast enough!!
But the people there were great. I can't say that enough.
Although my child has some lasting effects from her stay at the NICU. She doesn't like her feet touched because in the NICU, that's where they drew blood and poked her for tests. She literally recoils her feet if you touch them or brush against them. She sleeps on her stomach, because being on her back reminds her of being naked and hot under the jaundice lights. She will only sleep soundly on my chest. I know I will have to break her of this eventually, or she will be sleeping with us until she's twelve like I did my parents.
Oh and I can't put her down. Because they took her away from me once, and I constantly feel like I have to make up for the hours I missed and thought that I would never get to hold her alive.

Okay I have much more on the subject of motherhood and everything I'm learning. That post will follow shortly. Also tomorrow, if I can put Evie down long enough, I need to write a post to you all about my amazing grandfather who passed on Saturday. So hopefully I will get to that. I am slowly more and more, being able to put her down and get stuff done, but it is a process!

Thanks for sticking with me with my erratic posting! Talk to you all tomorrow hopefully!

Love (parenthood),
Carrie