Boys and the NICU

The World Turned Upside Down

"If buttercups buzz'd after the bee,
If boats were on land, churches on sea,
If ponies rode men and if grass ate the cows,
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse...

If summer were spring and the other way round,
Then all the world would be upside down."

This supposedly was sung when Cornwallis, the British general, surrendered to the Americans at Yorktown during the Revolutionary war. It would also be appropriate to have this played before every date I go on, because I feel that this explains my dating life right now. Did these boys go crazy? My world definitely turned upside down and backwards. In reality, I'm not going on that many dates, it just is a lot more than I am used to. In my last post I talked about how I was getting super nervous about some of these "second" dates (which have now become third dates) but something happened over these last few days. I've lost all interest in boys. Weird, huh? Oh well. Maybe I can pretend I got a boyfriend. Would that solve it? Or that I have a mission call? Ok, those are both lies. Can someone please talk sense into these boys? They really don't want to date me, they're just really confused and have a completely wrong impression of who I am. They want to date other girls that are actually interesting and who will actually be interested in them back. Ok, thanks.

On to more exciting news: I was able to have a shift in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) today! It was really interesting. Those babies were so tiny! I couldn't believe it. Some of them were as early as 23.5 weeks. That is insane. That means that they were about 3 months early. And they are surviving! Watching these babies made me want my own so much more than labor and delivery did (haha, maybe it's because I wasn't having to watch the super painful birthing process before I saw them...). I just wanted to hold them and to love them and to help them get healthy. I was reminded again of the sacredness of life. These precious babies are all God's children, He is aware of them, and He loves them all! 

Some things I learned: 

The most common problem seen in the NICU is respiratory difficulty. When babies are born prematurely, they don't have any surfactant in their lungs. Surfactant normally allows your lungs to expand easier, so in these babies we have to help them breathe. They are on  a lot of breathing treatments: ventilators, the CPAP, nasal canula, and several other types of oxygenation that I can't remember. 

If a preterm baby has too much oxygen (to help solve his/her respiratory difficulties) it can cause retinal damage and make them go blind. Hence they have to be VERY careful about how much oxygen they can give them--just barely enough. 

They sometimes use the umbilical cord vein as an IV. Interesting, huh? 

They have a lot of different kinds of incubators to keep the babies warm depending on their needs. It is really incredible, actually, how much we can do.

Ok, that's all I really want to write about. I love babies.  I need to go to bed.

 Sleep tight! :) 

Oh, one other thing. Did you know that the reason they put erythromycin in babies eyes when they are born is to prevent chlamydia and gonorrhea infections?! These are sexually transmitted diseases, for goodness sakes. I understand that STDs are dangerous and are becoming more and more of a problem, but to have this become standard nursing care for every baby seems really sad. And why, then, do they dislike if you opt out of this treatment? Oh, and the Hep B vaccine? This is also for a sexually transmitted disease. What is this world coming to? If a mother has no STDs, if she is very healthy, why is she criticized if she decides to opt out? Chill out nurses! Okay, that's all.