In case you haven’t heard already, Cailin’s been in the hospital with RSV for the last week. All things considered, she’s doing pretty well, we’re just waiting for her to get off the last little bit of oxygen (they call it a “trace”), and to stop requiring her airways to be suctioned out, at least so often. Of course, we’ve been waiting for this for the last 4 days now, but every day things look a little better. We’ll see when it actually happens, though. Maybe Weds?

Being at the hospital this long is a completely new experience for me–I’ve never had a chance to interact with other patients before during any of my stays. This time around, because I’m pumping every 3 hours in the “pump room” I’ve had a chance to talk with some of the moms of other patients, and hear their stories. I’ve also had the same nurses and respiratory therapists a couple of times in a row, so I’ve gotten to hear their stories, too. I’ve come to realize that this place (the pediatric floor), while definitely a wonderful place with many happy endings, is also a place of much heartbreak and difficulty. There’s the girl whose baby is 3 days younger than Cailin, who’s already been released once, and is back in the hospital. There’s the baby who had RSV to start, then somehow ended up with a blood infection. There’s the baby they think has meningitis. But then there were the 3 other patients my nurse had yesterday, who were all released with (all things considered) healthy babies. There’s my nurse herself, who had a baby at 19, then found out a year later that she had endometriosis, and had a hysterectomy at the ripe old age of 24. She refused to work pediatrics for a long time, and finally just recently has found the strength to be here, and has really grown to love helping others babies, and is considering doing that full time instead of rotating. There’s the respiratory therapist we saw on the first night, who has a 15 year old daughter, and just found out a few weeks ago that she is finally expecting a second child, after years of trying, which ended with going to the doctor to tell them she wanted a permanent solution, only to find out she was pregnant.

When I asked one of the nightly respiratory therapists why they chose to suck out baby snot for a living, he just told me that even though it didn’t seem like a very ideal job (can you imagine choosing a job that makes babies scream and cry all night?), it was a way to make an immediate positive impact in a child’s life, and that made it all worth it. All I know is that I am SO grateful that despite whatever reservations our nurses and techs and therapists and doctors may have had about their jobs, they chose to do it anyway. My baby is here and thriving this week because they’ve chosen to do a job that while not ideal, and often so difficult, can make a big difference. I am forever thankful.

Now if we could just get out of this place… we’re tired of being here.

and we really miss these three: