Around 5:00 that Saturday, Shane left to do some errands and I stayed at the hospital with Noah. All of a sudden, the trauma of that day started sinking in. Noah was in a room with 2 other babies, one preemee and one little guy with feeding tubes. I couldn't look around. The room started closing in on me and I couldn't breathe.
I phoned Shane and told him to come back and get me right away. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to go back that night, but the nurses assured me that he would be fine and they would take care of him if I chose not to come back. I felt like the worst mother on the planet. Who leaves their 11 day old baby alone in the hospital with strangers? I cried and cried and cried and cried. It was one of those cries that come from deep within your soul that no amount of comforting can get rid of. Shane just held me an hour while I cried.
After a shower and a bite to eat and that huge cry out of the way, Shane and I went back to the hospital for a few hours. I wasn't allowed to sleep in the same room as Noah, so I made the decision to go home and rest and go back every morning by 9:00 for the entire time he stayed in the hospital.
By Monday morning, we saw a pediatric cardiologist who determined that Noah had and arrythmia in his heart that caused what was called an SVT--a supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) or, rapid rhythm of the heart. We had 3 options: Put Noah on medication to control the irregular heartbeat, perform a surgery to make it happen again to find out exactly what was going on, or wait until it happened again.
I didn't like any of the options.
We were told that this condition, although stressful and scary, is more of a nuisance but has a good prognosis. Noah will more than likely grow out of it. They informed us that we would be taught how to check his heart rate with a stethescope and to pay attention to the signals that I had picked up on in the beginning.
I felt extremely proud of myself because there really is nothing to let you know a newborn is experiencing an irregular heart beat. Why? Because all newborns sleep alot, they sometimes want to sleep rather than eat, and they all spit up at sometime.
The first few days and weeks home with Noah after his SVT were stressful. I never let Noah out of my sight. I worried about every little whimper and was on edge most of the time. I felt far removed from everything that was going on and was always obsessed with looking at the clock and checking his heart along with remembering to give him his medicine.. I could feel that post partum depression coming over me very quickly and if I didn't do something fast, it was going to overtake me.
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