I remember one morning when Ollie was about 2 weeks old, my mom and I arrived at the NICU at our usual time. She got scrubbed in first and went into the room where he had been since he was born. She came back out shortly and in a low voice told me that he had been moved and they were looking to see where he was. I instantly felt a wave of anxiety wash over me. What had happened during the night that they had to move him? I almost started crying. We found out shortly that he was next door in the less critical room. His nurse explained that they had gotten some new babies during the night and they had to shuffle some kids around. Ollie was kicked out of his spot because he was the most stable of the critical babies. I will be honest I HATED his new room. He was the smallest and still in his fish tank, while a lot of his neighbors were in open cribs. It was so much noisier in that room. One baby would start crying and it was a domino effect until many other babies were all crying or setting off their alarms. Oliver was much more restless in this room and would often pull at his tubes. I felt like this was the room for the teenage parents, there were so many of them. Some of them were very involved with their babies and others only came to see their children sporadically. I felt so bad for those babies who never got held by anyone other than their nurse. Some of these precious little ones were going through drug withdrawal, and were so irritable. Some days when I needed to distract myself I would wonder how these very young parents, who were children themselves, could possibly deal with all of this. I mean I have a very strong medical background and was struggling to get through this experience.
The whole time Oliver was in this room my anxiety was increased significantly. I just wanted to go back to his other room where it was quieter and I knew the nurses better. At the same time Oliver made some big strides in this room: he started wearing clothes, and began oral feedings. These events are huge in the life of a preemie.
Another huge source of anxiety for me was the looming date of the "big move". OSF had recently completed the construction of a new children's hospital and the NICU would be moving. I didn't know how I would handle it if I couldn't deal with him moving 50 feet to a new room. The parents were prepped for the move and given tours of the new NICU to help set our minds at ease. A big concern for everyone including the staff, was that we were all going to be in private rooms. The babies were currently in a big room and there were about 4 nurses in each room so if your nurse was busy you could simply ask another nurse for help.
The night before the move we were informed that Ollie would be in the first wave of babies moved, so we needed to be at the hospital by 730 when the move would start. Thankfully the move day was one that Justin had off so he got up extra early and drove down to be there for the move. The morning of the move my mom and I arrived at his bed and saw a large sign on his fish tank with his new address, he was going to the Airplane neighborhood. Justin got there about a half an hour before Oliver was moved. We could see some of the very critical babies being rolled down the hall with a team of staff, it was about a 10 minute walk to the new NICU. When Oliver's time came he was transported with 4 nurses and 1 respiratory therapist. We walked with him to the elevator and said good bye and then we were escorted to a different elevator and shown how to get to the new NICU. When we arrived we were given ID's in order to get on the unit. After scanning in we found his room and gave a sigh of relief that he had made the trip and was in his room safe and sound. Once we were settled in we loved the new unit. Everything ran smoothly and there was not a problem of not having help when you needed it.
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