First Day in Kingston

This is the second installment in the series of updates on Tadhg and how he's doing. I am picking it up after Tadhg was transferred to Kingston. We all got to see him in his portable incubator with the team from Kingston before he headed out in the ambulance.
We then went home. We got two phone calls before we went to bed. One was from Belleville hospital, wondering where I went. Silly buggers, they told me I was discharged, there was ample opportunity to speak to me while we waited for Tadhg's transfer, I TOLD their staff we were going home and to Kingston in the morning and they still couldn't figure out that I had left. Well run hospital eh? The other call was from Kingston General Hospital saying that he had arrived safely. They had switched him from an oxygen hood to a special breathing device called a CPAPP that paced his breathing and allowed him to be weaned onto room air. He had spent some time on room air already and was doing well. It was nice to have some good news before going to sleep! I had put out a Tweet on my Twitter account that afternoon while still in the hospital with David's laptop. I asked for prayers for Tadhg because of his premature birth and his trouble breathing. When I logged on to share the good news about Tadhg I discovered that there were more than a hundred heartfelt responses and prayers being sent. David and I scrolled down through page after page of prayers and best wishes and we were both overwhelmed to the point of tears.

I had never expected to have such a response. Mind you, I never expected to have a thousand followers! When I started tweeting it was so that I had a forum online to let loose some of my frustration with the obstacles my friends and other women were facing to successfully breastfeeding their babies. I wanted a forum to sound off without it being in any way personal as it would have been if I had used my Facebook page. I also found a great opportunity to help women who were Tweeting about their difficulties and learned from other Lactivists that it was a way to speak up to people who attack and shame breastfeeding Mothers. But the wonderful supportive community of Moms who share so much love online has been a miraculous revelation. The extent of that love, flowing out to my tiny little boy as he struggled to cope with being forced out into the world too early by a terrible virus, was so powerful and so wonderful. I was blown away.

We went to sleep filled with hope. In the morning David got the kids ready for school and asked our neighbour to watch Roisin. David disassembled and boiled the pieces of my breastpump. I slept in, completely exhausted. When I woke I was starving and feeling a little better. After getting organised and throwing a few things in a bag, we headed off to Kingston. We both went in and spent some time with Tadhg who was in an incubator on a breathing tube. Tadhg also has a slight problem with his feet where they aren't completely straight and we learned that the hospital in Kingston would begin his treatment for that. He would have casts placed on his feet and they would be changed once a week, possibly for as long as a year or even more. We haven't been able to speak to the orthopaedic specialists yet to discover how long they think it will be. He also has a slight hypospadias which caused them some concern about his ability to urinate. He had been ultrasounded to check his kidneys in particular but also all of his other organs. He hadn't wet his first diaper in Kingston yet, but the nurses were very happy when we were able to tell them that he had soaked the pediatrician right after his birth and then again when he was in the nursery in Belleville. Also, his diaper was wet when it was checked shortly after we arrived. The nurses were weighing his diapers and it didn't take too long to reassure them that he was processing fluids successfully.

We discovered a patch of hair taped to his name card which the nurse had saved. He had to have some hair removed so that they could put IVs in his scalp. We were able to reach into his incubator to touch him but that was all we were able to do. David headed out because he had to work and I headed off to the breastfeeding room to start pumping.

This hospital in Kingston is apparently quite breastfeeding positive. I had been very pleased to note the nurse coaching the neighbouring Mom on the importance of pumping every three hours in order to bring her milk in. She had also reassured her because she was worried that the bottle she had pumped at home wasn't full enough. 60 ml of colostrum is actually pretty impressive and both the nurse and I told her so which helped her to feel better. The nurse told her they treated the milk like gold, not a drop was wasted because it is the best medicine for preemies and the Moms work so hard to pump it. There were posters up about breastfeeding around the L&D ward and I had seen no sign of formula anywhere. What was most impressive though, and I noted this not just this first day but on an ongoing basis, is that everyone simply assumes every mom is going to breastfeed. The first question nurses seem to ask new moms is not, "are you going to breastfeed?" rather it's "how often are you pumping? make sure it's every three hours!". The literature handed out to parents details how breastfeeding can and should begin early with preemies but that formula/bottlefeeding must wait because it is too stressful! (The exact OPPOSITE of the policy/practice in Belleville!) And....there is the breastpumpiing room. This is a special private room, with hospital pumps, padded rockers, magazines and breastfeeding supportive reading material, free sterile bottles, a sink, lables, pens, everything needed to pump. And each Mom is provided with a kit including the breast shields tubing etc needed to pump. These kits are handed in and sterilised by the hospital every 24 hours and a new kit provided to the Mom. I settled myself in here and proceeded to try and assemble my pump.

I got everything put together but the cover would NOT stay over the pump membrane. Every time I got it on and turned the pump on, pop, off it came. I tried in vain and ever increasing frustration, tears and fears for over an hour to get it back together but I just couldn't make it work. The nurses at the station near the room had no idea about how to fix it because they only knew the Symphony and Lactina pumps which the hospital uses. I finally had to go back to the other ward and ask to use the phone to call David. I was distraught, terrified and furious. I told him he had broken the breast pump and I didn't know WHAT I was going to do. I took a strip off him with my tongue and tried to explain what was wrong with the machine. He said he thought he knew what he did but couldn't explain it over the phone how to fix it. He wasn't going to be able to get back to help me fix it either, I was going to have to stay in Kingston. The nurse tried to google a manual for my pump, but my pump was bought in 2002 and they've made changes to the Pump in Style since then. It is now called the Pump in Style Advanced and the manual she found online didn't help. They set me up with a kit and showed me how to use the Symphony pump. I had used this one in the Belleville hospital and I was NOT impressed. It only has two speeds, works completely differently from my own pump and because it uses two small individual pump diaphragms it doesn't have as effective or as gentle suction. But I was stuck with it!

I was in and out of the NICU and the pumping room for most of the day. The hospital has a social worker for the NICU and she set me up with a room at Almost Home, which is a local facility the people of Kingston created for parents with sick children to stay in while their children are in the hospital. I settled in over there late in the evening. They also loaned me a breastpump, a Lactina, and a kit of shields etc to use while not at the hospital. Almost Home is a beautiful turn of the century home, originally a Doctor's residence, which has been expanded and renovated to serve it's new function. It has an elevator and is fully accessible. They also provide food, laundry, toiletries, loan strollers for other children. In general the place is a godsend! It receives no government funding and is largely but not entirely run by volunteers. They also hire adults who are living with challenges for many positions. A real example of community working successfully.

I was certainly glad of it, because if it wasn't for Almost Home, I would have been spending the night sleeping in a waiting room at the hospital, which would have been unpleasant at the best of times but especially unfortunate when you've had a baby a day before. Luckily though I had a clean and comfortable bed, in a large room with it's own wheelchair accessible bathroom and a breastpump in the room. I found food in the kitchen, took a HOT shower and I actually even managed to get a bit of sleep.

I'll pick up the story on the Tuesday with the next installment.