First Days in the NICU

 I had no idea what to expect when they wheeled me into her NICU room Thursday evening, and I know that nothing could have prepared me for what I did see.  I'm sure the hormones from just giving birth didn't help, but it was incredibly rough to see Lauren that evening.  I consider myself a pretty strong woman when it comes to holding it together, but when I saw her, I pretty much lost it.  It looked a lot worse than it actually was, and once the doctor explained it all to me, I definitely was more stable. 

 The doctors explained to us that Lauren had to succeed at different "steps" in order to be released from the NICU.  Rusty and I wrongly assumed she'd be in there a few hours or overnight, but that wasn't the case.  She had to be able to successfully breath on her own, maintain her body temperature on her own, and eat all on her own for 48 hours before they considered releasing her.  They wouldn't give us a "time" for how long that would take, which we understood why, so we really had to just let her call the shots.  That is something very hard for me to do, and I truly believe that was one thing God taught me in this entire journey; I'm not in control. 

 She had to stay in the incubator until she was strong enough to not need the CPAP for breathing.  A day after she completed that step, she got jaundice, so they had to put her right back in there for a couple of days.

 So precious!

 They had very strict rules in the NICU, which we were very thankful for.  Only Rusty and I could come to see her whenever we wanted to, but there were only eight scheduled times throughout the day we could touch her.  Early on, that's all we could do.  We only could touch her through the round "windows" of the incubator that opened.  After 48 hours, we were able to take her out to hold her and feed her.  Also, only four other people could come in to see her total; they called it the family tree.  

 All of her grandparents were able to see her Saturday night before leaving to go back to Houston.

This doll was something Emily picked out for baby Lauren at the hospital right before she was born.  She wanted us to leave it in Lauren's room with her while she was in the NICU.  The girls actually were able to see Lauren for about five minutes before she left for the NICU, and then they didn't see her again (minus in pictures) until she was released and came home.