Own Time Own Target

Was only able to see Baby V the 2nd day after delivery as I was still unsteady on my feet (from blood loss during labour... TMI? ermmm... that's reality for ya!) and deemed unable to make my way by myself to NICU. Was wheeled there by E when he visited in the afternoon.

It was tough to see Baby V so heavily hooked up to various machinery:
- 1 sensor taped to her left foot to monitor O2 level,
- 2 sensors taped to her chest to monitor her heart rate and respiratory rates,
- 1 tap into her impossibly tiny veins on her left hand for a main line to deliver nutrients and liquid intravenously,
- 2 velcro patches on her cheeks to fix a two-prong air tube into her nostrils (which are kinda squashed since the air tubes are too big for her) and
- a feeding tube from her mouth to her stomach for milk...

She was housed in an incubator which kept her warm and toasty, and which allowed access only through pot holes for us to insert a cautious (washed, scrubbed and sanitised) finger to touch her fragile skin.

She is just so small that even the new born sized diaper had to be folded into half before it could fit her...

But even as my heart aches thus, I could not get away from noticing the other babies in the same cubicle as Baby V. Some were just 700+ gm when born, and the smallest was only 675gm... Baby V, while small, is exactly TWICE that of this baby... oh poor things.

E who had already made a tour of the cubicle duly informed me that Baby V was the heaviest of all babies there. But I spied a baby at the corner with a birth weight of 1410gm and told him so.

E's PFS* kicked in and dismissively said, "oh yah, but Baby V is TALLER, that baby is only 39cm tall but Baby V is 41cm long."

cute.


*PFS = Proud Father Syndrome

Labels: to Love