The NICU

Soon after he was born I told Randy to pick a name for him. Randy decided on Harrison Mathias Fischer. I LOVED it. It was perfect. Mathias is Matthew in German. Matthew is after Randy's brother.

The NICU's first priority was to help him breathe. They started out with a CPAP machine to see if they could open up his lungs with a little pressure and assistance. He did okay but they could see that he was declining and needed more help. He was working so hard to breath. He was getting tired. The decision was quickly made to put him on a ventilator.

He looked so much more comfortable on the ventilator.

Tori came up that night. Thank goodness she had her camera with her. We left to the hospital that morning so fast. We didn't have a chance to bring anything with us. Thank you so much Tori for these pictures you took. They are priceless to me.



Randy's parents came up that morning to be with our kids. They brought the kids to the hospital to see me. They don't allow kids under 14 to go into the NICU and Harrison was too sick to take to the NICU window. The nurse in the NICU taking care of him broke a rule and let the kids come into the back hall and peek into a tall window so they could see their brother. I was so grateful.







We decided that Randy would go home and sleep with the kids and my mom would stay with me in the hospital. My mom was a trooper. That night was hard. I don't think I slept at all. My mom got even less sleep than me. I was in a lot of pain, the Magnesium Sulfate made me feel terrible and an air pocket had settled under my diaphragm from surgery. Every time I took a regular breath my diaphragm would spasm and I couldn't catch my breath it was scary. I tried to breath as shallow as I could. If I dozed off I would take a deeper breath and I would spasm. It was a LONG night. By the next afternoon I was feeling a lot better...thank goodness.

Over the next 48 hours Harrison was on and off the ventilator, and CPAP. They would trial him off and he would fail and need to go back on. Before they ventilated him the second time they let me come down and hold him for just a minute. It was just what I needed. I loved every minute.



After 3 days he was weened off the breathing machines and only needed a little oxygen from a nasal cannula. It was a relief.





The next step was to get him off IV nutrition and start him eating. He was hungry.