Brayden's Status

Many of you may not know what happened to Brayden on tuesday. After his first night, we thought everything was going smoothly and that his time in the NICU would be uneventful. Tuesday they were moving Miranda from Antepartum to Postpartum when I realized I left the breast milk in the fridge in the old room. When I went back and got it, I decided to drop it off in the NICU for Brayden. As i walked in the door i heard the receptionist saying they need a chest ex ray in Pod 2 STAT. That just so happens to be the unit Brayden is in. I calmly said to the receptionist I know you can't tell me what is going on but can you please tell me if it is my child or not. She told me she couldn't tell me and that I could not go back there because they were doing a procedure on one of the babies. She said I would have to go outside the NICU and call back in.

So I did. She answered the phone and said I can;t put you through because they are working on a baby and all the nurses are busy. I made my way back into the room and tried not to let on that something might be wrong. A short while later, the charge nurse from postpartum came in and said, "I heard you guys were worried about something that you heard called over the PA and I called the NICU and they said they would have someone call you and let you know the status of your baby."

At that point Miranda knew something wasn't right. I tried to keep her calm by telling her that I was sure it wasn't Brayden, that the baby next to him had been having trouble all day, which he had. Everytime I was in the NICU visiing Brayden that baby's monitors kept going off. About an hour later there was a knock on the door and the NICU doctor came in and the first words out of her mouth were, "Your baby is stable now and I wanted to come fill you in on what happened." At that point Miranda began weeping and i was doing all I could to hold myself together. She told us that he had developed a pnuemothorax on his left side. A pnuemothorax is a hole in the lungs in which air escapes the lobe of the lung, fills the chest cavity and causes the lung to collapse. The doctor continued to fillus in and said that they were able to get a chest tube in to suck out the air but they had to put him n the Ventilator because he was unable o breathe on his own. At that point she asked what the baby's name was and when I tried to respond, nothing came out. We cried and held each other. It was all happening again. The same nightmares we lived throgh with Payton were coming back to life.

It was several hours before they let me go and see him. Miranda was still bed ridden because her blood pressure was to high for her to even sit up straight. I ran to the NICU to see him and give Miranda a report. When I returned to the room, Miranda was still in tears. I sat down beside her and tried to reassure her that he was doing good. After a couple more visits we finally went to bed.