Well, Callum definitely won’t be going home this weekend. He has had a few setbacks so I’m trying to readjust my timeline and my expectations on when we can bring home our baby. His hematocrit dropped to 25, which isn’t too bad (they usually transfuse between 22-24) but he wasn’t feeding well, he was having some oxygen desats and his retic was still super low (meaning he isn’t making his own blood yet) so they decided to go ahead and do the blood transfusion. They put an IV in his foot which made me so sad because it looked really painful. Since it took a while for the blood to be available I went back to the RMH to sleep and when I came back in the morning he had an IV in his hand because the foot IV didn’t work. He had just finished having his blood transfusion when I got there and his skin looked so pink and healthy.

He was awake and hungry so I breastfed him and he took a whole feeding without falling asleep, which is awesome! A few minutes later I heard him filling up his diaper so I decided to change him. When I opened up his diaper there was quite a bit of blood mixed in with the poop. The doctor came to look at it and she said he could either have a dairy allergy or he could have something called Transfusion Related Gut Injury (TRAGI) which can sometimes happen in micro-preemies who have blood transfusions. He’s definitely not a micro-preemie so we are hoping it is just a dairy allergy. The timing, though, suggests that it might have something to do with the blood transfusion. The doctor is x-raying his abdomen right now to try to get answers and I’m cutting all dairy out of my diet just in case. They are putting him on gut rest until they can figure out what is going on. Callum’s ferritin (iron) levels are really high on top of all of this. Before the blood transfusion his ferritin level was 1,216 and the normal range is 25-250. Since he was given adult donor blood which has high levels of iron in it, his levels are probably much higher now. They are running liver function tests to see if his liver is being affected by all of this extra iron in his body.

It is hard not knowing how much longer we have to live here in Atlanta separated from our family and our normal life and our sweet baby Callum. And can I just say how absolutely unnatural and weird it is to have a NICU baby in the first place? It’s unnatural to give birth and then never touch or hold or even see the baby for hours after that. It feels wrong for my baby to go through painful procedures without me there with him to comfort him. I show up and he’s suddenly got an IV or he’s had a vaccination, etc. and I wasn’t there to hold him when he cried. It’s completely unnatural to ask a stranger if I can please hold my baby or change his diaper or feed him. I’m his mother. I should be the one giving permission to others if they want to handle my baby. Nora still hasn’t even met Callum and Josh has seen him for maybe a couple hours in the past two weeks. All of this feels off but thank goodness it is temporary. Part of me feels incredibly privileged to even have a baby in the NICU. The one and only dream I ever had of Lucy after she died was of her in the NICU. I was going to visit her and I walked into the hospital, up the elevator to the next floor and down a long hallway to my baby Lucy’s crib. She was so sweet with chubby cheeks and brown hair and oh, I loved her so much. I was so happy to be with her in that sunny little room. Then I woke up to my nightmare…swollen, milk filled breasts and empty arms and a permanently mutilated heart. I was gutted. I begged God not to ever, ever let me dream about her again because I couldn’t stand waking up to my life. I will just wait until heaven. Thankfully He heard my pleas and hasn’t ever given me a dream about Lucy again. It would be too painful. But after I had that dream I struggled any time I heard a NICU mom complain about her living baby who was still in the NICU. I envied her. Now I get to be one of those moms with a living baby in the NICU and I am so, so grateful (and yes, I still complain about the hard stuff.) Even though it is inconvenient, it is stressful, it is exhausting and it feels unnatural, I know we are very blessed to be in this situation. Do you know what is truly unnatural? A mama saying goodbye to her baby for good. A mama living the rest of her life without her child.

So, yes, it is hard and we are exhausted but we are so thankful.

Please continue to pray for our baby Callum to get over whatever is hurting his belly, to get better at his feedings and for his blood levels to normalize. We appreciate all of you so much!