We arrived at the hospital at 7 am on June 15th, 2010. We had only gotten about 2 hours of sleep the night before. I was very nervous about this departure. Most of our family came the night before to say their goodbyes to Alayna. My mom was at the hospital before us that morning! Alayna was sleeping peacefully and had no clue what was going. Missy was her nurse that day! I was so happy to see her that morning. Missy was her primary nurse and was gone all weekend, I was glad that she was able to send her off. Her other primary nurse Jill had been gone since Thursday and didn't work until 7 pm, long after Alayna was gone. Jill had no clue at all we were leaving. It was hard to leave without saying goodbye to her.
At about 7:30am they brought in the transport incubator. That is about the time that I lost it. This was real, it was really happening. I was scared for my daughters life. We were told that transports can do a lot of damage to a baby in such a critical condition. My hope overruled my fears, I knew this transfer was best for Alayna and she needed all the help she could get. As we started to pack up the last few things at Alayna's bedside they started to get the transport vent and monitor ready. I gave my little girl a kiss and told her I loved her very much and into the transport incubator she went. She just looked around everywhere, like, "What is going on?".
Jenny would be her transport nurse, which was great, Alayna had a temper and you had to know her to get her to calm down, and Jenny did! We headed down with Alayna in the elevator and outside the ambulance was waiting. They put her in and I waved bye. My Mom stayed with the ambulance until they pulled out of the hospital. Andrew and I sat in our car waiting to follow them. We decided we would follow them the whole way down so if anything happened we would know. We had taken off the DNR about a week earlier, so if they needed to save her life during this transport they had the "go ahead", I won't mention how we had to fight the doctors for 2 days to have that DNR removed.
At 8:26 am we pulled out of St John's Children's Hospital and headed to St Louis. It was a bright beautiful sunny day, not a dark cloud in sight! It was a day when I actually noticed outside and wasn't in zombie mode. I cried for about the first 15 minutes and then told myself, "Alayna will make it!". About 9:30 I got a call from Jenny. My first thought, "What is wrong?, What happened?". The first words Jenny spoke was, "She is doing great!". Boy did that settle my nerves. Alayna was wide awake looking around sucking on her pacifier. She loved that pacifier! After we hung up I started crying again, God was answering our prayers, she was doing great!
The ride was a very smooth ride with no complications at all! We arrived at St Louis Children's Hospital at 10:11 am! We made it, now we had to figure out where we were going and what we were to do. We went to the emergency room where the ambulance pulled in and told them our daughter was being transported. They took us upstairs and to the information desk. They had already had our info but not Alayna's name or her room number. We got our badges and then were directed to the 5th floor. This hospital was so big, I was so confused and nervous!
When we got off the elevator to the 5th floor there is an information desk and we told the clerk why we were there and our daughters name, out came the packet of rules! There rules were so different than St John's. They gave us the number to the NICU and if we wanted to check on Alayna we had to use a 4 digit parent code that they assigned you, how would I ever remember that, I call every 10 minutes when I am gone! At St John's you just call back to your child's pod and you got their nurse and you were updated. They did this at St Louis to verify you were the parent, after the receptionist verified the code then they would page the nurse. We also had to sign in everyday, for the first couple days we signed in as Krista and Andrew, then it turned in to Mom and Dad. St John's you never had to sign in. There was also a visitor book, we had to fill in who could visit Alayna without Mom and Dad being in the room or even in the hospital. At St John's no one could visit unless Mom or Dad was by their side. This was a big change but kind of nice. Also the receptionist would call back to see if it was ok to come back, St John's you called back yourself and asked. There was one similarity, you had to get permission first to visit your baby!
All this info went in one ear and out the other. My main concern was Alayna. I had no clue if she was ok and what was going on. Tanja (the receptionist that day) called back and they stated Alayna was in her room and they would call us back once she was settled. We saw Jenny and the respiratory therapist walk out. They told us she was doing great and not to worry! That help settle my nerves for about 15 minutes! While waiting we talked with a social worker. We were out on the waiting list for the Ronald McDonald House and a mother that breast feeds gets 3 $4 vouchers a day to be used in the cafeteria, healthy mom, healthy baby.
Finally about an hour after we got to St Louis we were allowed back to see Alayna.....
