Gray Days Stink

Today was a gray day....in more than one way.

This morning, I called Elise's nurse as soon as I woke up to check in. The last we heard around 11pm the night before was that Elise was all tucked in and doing great. I guess she wanted to keep the nurses on their toes! Sure enough, throughout the night Elise could never get comfortable and kept dropping her oxygen sats. The doctor ended up increasing her oscillator settings and ordering a belly X-ray to try and figure out why she was so uncomfortable. The X-ray showed several different gas patterns, so to be on the cautious side, the doctors discontinued feedings for the day. This was a bummer to hear...I absolutely loved she was getting milk every 4 hours. They also wondered about the possible infection due to the white blood cell count that continued to climb. The results were not back by the time I called in the morning, so they didn't know if the infection was part of the problem as well.

Essentially, Elise was not having a black or white day...she was having a gray day. The nurses said "We think she's up to something...we just don't know what yet."

I decided to keep myself busy today so I wouldn't worry about our girl. I knew she was in good hands, however it did kill me that I couldn't help her on her gray day. Even if I was in Indianapolis today, I still couldn't hold her or soothe her. This happens to be one of the greatest challenges as a NICU mom in these early stages. You so badly want to help, but you just can't.

To keep myself busy, the painter came by with paint samples. I've decided to go with a light gray color for the walls since Elise's bedding is so busy. The gray should give the room a fresh/calm look and make the bedding "pop." Boy, was it a gray day for me too....

The first sample happened to have too much blue in it. So the painter went back to the paint store to try and get a color with less blue tint. He came back an hour later with...sure enough, a gray-purple. He once again returned to the paint store. Third time was a charm...he came back (by now it's 4:00) with the perfect gray. Did I tell you we started this "gray day" at 9 am??

Isn't it funny how we want so many things in our life to either be black or white? We want everyone in the car to be hungry for that one restaurant. We want everyone to select the same movie to watch. We want our children to grow up and have their eyes set on one major and occupation.

We want the doctors and nurses to know exactly why our little lady had a rough day, why her settings needed to be increased, and what to do to make her better. I know the doctors and nurses wanted this too.

Gray days stink. However, if we can make "light" of some of our gray days, we don't end up ruining our day.

Turns out Elise had a much better afternoon, and they weaned her down on the oscillator slightly. Her infection screening test came back as 0.1 which is very encouraging.

She also got a new yellow bow today from Miss Karrie :)

Here's to fewer and fewer gray days...

G & J & E