Saturday May 14th, we had a long night with Austin, he was not on his usual 3 hour schedule that he was on in NICU. At 11pm we tried to put him to bed after changing and feeding him, he wasn't having it. We were up most of the night with him. Finally at 5am after his feed he fell asleep. I woke up at 8:10am and changed him. I crawled into bed and got him to breastfeed in the side lying position...I fell asleep. I woke up in a panic. When I looked down he was blue, and there was blood coming from his nose and all over me. I shot out of bed, grabbed a wash cloth and wiped the blood away. I began CPR while my husband called 911. This seemed like an eternity waiting for REMSA to get here. Once they arrived Austin was pronounced dead! I was shocked that there was no attempt at saving him. To make things worse my husband and I had to tell our story of what happened to multiple police, detectives and the coroner We were taken to the police station to give our statements then when we were done we had to re-enact our situation. This was HORRIBLE! The next few days were tears, planning a funeral and being with our wonderful families who supported us.
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| releasing the balloons |
On Thursday we had a beautiful service to say good bye to our baby. We had so much support from our family, friends, co-workers and even our nurses. When the service was over we released balloons, 1 for every day Austin was with us. These were the hardest and yet BEST days we had with our son. As we released the balloons, God sent us a sign as a hawk started soaring around the slowest balloon.
My husband prayed for strength that we would get through this but also a sign our baby was safe in heaven.
Everday I have a melt down or many. I am SO mad at God for taking our baby! Austin fought for 27 days in the NICU. He only got to spend 2 days with his sister who was so ready to love him. I know this is selfish but I work with new moms and babies all the time, I see how many are unwanted and I don't understand why God didn't take one of them. Our son was SO loved by many and we would give anything to have him back.
Mommy is a mess and Austin needs to start eating…doesn't get the whole suck, swallow, breathe concept! He has to be able to eat all feeds by himself. He is up to 4 lbs 2.5oz but lost weight last night from the 27th. I requested he go back under the lights since he was borderline jaundice…wanted to nip that problem now! Most people can feed a baby but when it comes to preemies, they get easily distracted and over stimulated. Tonight Chris was taught by one of our favorite nurses how to feed Austin, did I mention Austin is totally Chris's son...stubborn! That's all for now…
Austin is able to "attempt" to breastfed now so I spent the day encouraging him. Gary and Donna (Chris' grandparents Bartlett) came to visit us today so Austin got to wear his new outfit from them. Appropriatley it has a bib that says "feed me" Because in the NICU you can only have 2 visitors at a time, they had to take turns. Gary sat with me watching Austin, he reluctantly put his hands in the isolette and touched Austin's leg. We took some pictures before they left but most were of Austin in his isolette. 
Austin gets tired and isn't used to breastfeeding so most of his feeding are in his NG tube. I could stare at him all day :)
I also got him a blue bunny, Chris hated it but I thought it was funny the bunny was bigger then him
