Our Newborn Hospital Stay: The Terrifying 14 Day Journey From Birth to PICU and Back Home
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Birth and the First Days
Our first newborn hospital stay began with a planned c-section at 37 weeks, but it quickly became far more complicated than we ever expected. We had to go the c-section route because he is an IVF baby, and my wife had previously undergone a myomectomy to remove a problematic fibroid before beginning the IVF process. Since her uterus had been surgically operated on, her doctors advised against the risk of active labor. The c-section itself went well, even if it wasn’t exactly the experience we had once envisioned, and we were soon holding a healthy baby boy, 19 inches long and 6 pounds, 10 ounces.
Early Struggles With Feeding
Heading into the second night, everyone warned us it would be rough. Nurses and lactation consultants told us to expect cluster feeding, constant wakeups, and little to no sleep. So when our son dozed off after a feed that evening, we gently swaddled him, placed him in his bassinet, and tried to get a little rest ourselves.
When we woke up six hours later and saw that he was still asleep, we were honestly just relieved. We fed him right away, but when the nurse came in and we shared what had happened, her expression changed immediately. She told us that we should have been waking him at least every three hours, ideally more often, and that we needed to be setting alarms. We hadn’t thought to… we were simply grateful for a quiet night that felt like a small victory.
Discharge… And a False Sense of Progress
Our first newborn hospital stay ended with out discharge on a Friday, just over 48 hours after the c-section. We had one minor hiccup: ten minutes down the road, I realized I had left our camcorder on the hospital window sill, so we turned around to retrieve it. But after that, we made it home.
As we stepped through the front door, my wife looked at me and said she thought her milk had fully come in. Her breasts were swollen, firm, and she was visibly uncomfortable. We started another round of breastfeeding, and that night became the clusterfeeding marathon everyone had warned us about. He couldn’t be put down without fussing, and even when he was nursing, it was hit or miss. Neither of us slept until around 5:30 a.m., when he finally nodded off in my lap and we gave in to our own exhaustion.
After that night, we called in backup.
Our moms took turns helping us for the next three nights. One of them would stay up with the baby while we grabbed a couple hours of sleep between feeds. We kept alarms set for every two to three hours, and whoever was watching would wake us if he stirred. Those nights were a blur, but their help made them survivable.
The Slide
Our first newborn hospital stay, the birth, had ended with our discharge on a Friday. At that point, our son weighed 6 pounds, 3.5 ounces. It wasn’t ideal, but we were told that small weight loss was normal for a c-section baby born slightly early. At our first pediatrician visit on Monday, though, things had changed.
He was down to 5 pounds, 8 ounces. That surprised us. We hadn’t noticed a difference, and he didn’t seem any smaller to us. We also pointed out a little discoloration on his diaper, which we assumed was leftover bleeding from his circumcision. (I’ll address that decision in another post.) The pediatrician gently explained that it wasn’t blood at all… it was urate crystals, an indicator of dehydration. She stayed calm and steady the entire visit, and her calm helped us stay grounded. But when she outlined what we needed to do next, we realized just how serious things were.
Triple Feeding, but Will It Work?
She put us on a two hour cycle of triple feeding. Fifteen minutes breastfeeding, fifteen minutes pumping, and then feeding the baby whatever had been pumped previously. Every two hours. Around the clock. It was a punishing schedule. Thankfully, we still had help from our moms, and we knew it was necessary. But we also knew we couldn’t sustain it indefinitely.
The next day, we had our first in-home visit from a lactation consultant not affiliated with the hospital. She brought her own scale and her own perspective. After weighing him, she shared her concern—he was down to 5 pounds, 6 ounces. Her recommendation was immediate: start supplementing with formula. We confirmed that plan with the pediatrician and agreed it was the right call.
Still, we had prepared ourselves for exclusive breastfeeding, so it took a little time to switch gears. When we finally offered a bottle, he barely took any. Because my wife had only been pumping small volumes—around 10 milliliters—we had been using a dropper to feed him expressed milk. We tried that with the formula too. For a moment, it seemed like he was keeping some down. But then he vomited. Not spit-up—true vomiting. And after that, he became alarmingly quiet. He wouldn’t wake up.
We tried everything we knew. I placed a cool washcloth on his forehead, then on his back, then on his chest. Nothing. He didn’t flinch or stir. And with his onesie open, I noticed how visible his ribs had become. His skin tone wasn’t right. Something was off. I didn’t analyze or overthink it—I just looked at my wife and said, “I think we need to take him to the ER.”
She wanted to call the pediatrician first, so we did. To our great relief, it was our actual pediatrician who answered the after-hours line. After a few quick questions, she confirmed what we were already thinking. She told us to take him to the children’s hospital downtown—not a satellite clinic or smaller ER. That had been my plan already, but hearing her say it helped settle any hesitation.
Running Red Lights, Dodging Security
The four of us—my wife, our son, my mom, and me—got in the car and took off. My wife sat in the backseat next to the baby while my mom helped me navigate. Every time I made a call to ignore a stoplight or yield sign, my mom double-checked that we were clear. While we drove, my wife called our families to let them know what was happening.
When we arrived, I jumped out, pulled the car seat from its base, and started jogging toward the entrance. A security guard called out that I had to go through the metal detector. I hesitated for half a second, but made the turn and jogged back through the detector without stopping. I figured they could follow me in if they needed to check anything else. Right now, I needed someone to help my son.
At the desk, they didn’t need much convincing. They saw my face. They heard the break in my voice. A nurse came out immediately and took one look at our baby. “Follow me,” she said, and we were in. He was severely dehydrated. They attempted two IV placements and failed both before finally getting one started in his foot. Then they began drawing blood, and that’s when I got scared.
It wasn’t flowing like blood—it was thick, almost like melted crayon. They couldn’t get enough to run all the tests they wanted to, so they prioritized. A blood culture. An ultrasound of his head. X-rays of his chest and abdomen. Carefully timed bloodwork, run in stages. Until they could rehydrate him, they had to choose what to test and when.
While all of this was happening, we had the most amazing ER nurse. She kept us informed about every test, every delay, every priority shift. When it came time to start the IV, my wife stepped out of the room — she couldn’t handle watching it. I wanted to leave, too, but I stayed. I felt like our baby needed a familiar voice, a hand he knew, someone who could reassure him in the middle of the trauma.
The nurse walked me through every step she took. She let me know when the first stick didn’t work. Then the second. She explained that his veins were small and hard to find, especially given how dehydrated he was, and that it wasn’t uncommon for tiny babies. After the second failed attempt, she brought in help. Once he was stable and we had a few minutes to breathe, she didn’t stop caring. She remembered that if our baby was six days old, my wife was six days post-op. We had arrived at the hospital with nothing but a diaper bag, so she tracked down a nipple shield and a hand pump for my wife. She even checked on her directly and made sure she had a place to rest and a few minutes to recover emotionally.
Newborn Hospital Stay 2.0: The PICU
Once the tests were done and the baby seemed a little better, the doctor came in. We each had our own expectations. My wife thought they might hang a second bag of fluids and send us home. I assumed we’d be admitted overnight for observation.
But we were both wrong. The doctor explained that our son had developed hypernatremia — elevated sodium levels — as a result of the dehydration. These levels had to be brought down slowly. If they dropped too quickly, it could be dangerous. So we were being admitted, but not to a regular pediatric room. He would be going to the PICU.
We didn’t have long to think about it. The doctor left the room, and moments later the nurse and a transport tech arrived. We were going upstairs.
That’s when the next wave of reality hit. We wouldn’t be going home for at least a few days. We needed clothes, toiletries, a real breast pump. My mom offered to go home and grab everything, but she didn’t know where half of it was. One of us needed to go. After a quick conversation, my wife chose to go with her. She said that if any more procedures had to be done, like another IV or blood draw, she wanted me there with him. That way, he wouldn’t be alone.
So off they went, and I stayed behind. The PICU room was small but filled with equipment. It was quiet except for the hum of monitors and the occasional beep. It was more peaceful than the ER, but the stress hadn’t gone away, it had just changed shape. Our baby started “Bradying down.” His heart rate, normally around 120, would drop to 77, and every time it happened, alarms would go off. The nurse would come in and reassure me that this was normal for babies in his condition, but how could alarms on a six-day-old feel normal?
There was a pullout couch and a recliner in the room. I dragged the recliner as close to the bassinet as I could, so I could reach up to put my hand on him, and watched the monitor. At some point, without meaning to, I must have fallen asleep.
The First Long Day
We weren’t in the ER any more, and so things were naturally going to develop a rhythm. Beginning our newborn hospital stay was going to involve learning that rhythm, and adjusting to it. A doctor and a med student came in and explained the plan. He would remain on fluids, and they would repeat bloodwork after allowing some time for him to rest and rehydrate.
Around 5 a.m., my wife and mom returned. Things were stable, so we went back to sleep and waited for grand rounds. During rounds, the doctors decided to start my wife on a pumping schedule every two to three hours to build her supply. In the meantime, we would feed our son formula to meet his needs.
That’s when things got harder again. He seemed to vomit more than he kept down. We tried a gentler formula. Then another. Eventually, we were given Similac Alimentum, one of the most hydrolyzed, gentle options available. Even that didn’t always stay down.
A hospital speech-language pathologist came to evaluate his feeding. She taught us how to hold him and how to do paced bottle feeding. She ruled out tongue ties and palate issues, but said he had a tendency to hold his tongue at the roof of his mouth. That meant he looked like he was nursing well but wasn’t actually pulling in milk. So we stopped nursing. We committed to exclusive pumping and paced bottle feeding, supplementing with formula when needed.
More Tests, More Tears
It was an emotional weight neither of us could shake. I could send quick updates to family, friends, and our church groups by text, but speaking the words out loud felt impossible. The first full day in the PICU, I had a medical appointment of my own on the calendar, and when I called to cancel, my voice broke. “My newborn is in the PICU. I can’t leave him.”
That day brought round after round of bloodwork every four hours, along with an ultrasound to rule out pyloric stenosis. We felt sure it was not the cause since there had been no projectile vomiting until formula entered the picture, but the team wanted to check every possibility. By nightfall, there was still no sign that we might be heading home.
The second full day brought even more weight. The attending physician explained that severe dehydration at this age could cause blood clots in the vessels of the brain, and he wanted to order a CT scan to be certain we were not missing anything. The amount of radiation for such a small baby concerned us, but we trusted his “knowledge is power” approach.
Before we could go to CT, though, the nurses were concerned that his IV was not working correctly. They attempted a flush, and it was not successful. They called in the specialized NICU nurses to identify a better location and place a new IV. My wife left the room to go find coffee for us while they did this. Once the new IV was in place it was time to go to radiology. I again stayed right by his side, and then just across the room while he was in the CT machine. Then back upstairs to wait for next steps.
Once we were back in the room, I discovered that our MyChart app would post results as soon as they were available, and I refreshed the screen almost continuously for the next ninety minutes. When the results finally appeared, I was relieved to see there were no clots. I relied on MyChart throughout the remainder of our newborn hospital stay, keeping up with everything from nurse notes to test results.
Words We Didn’t Want to Hear
That relief was short-lived. Later, a hospital dietitian came to speak with us. She explained gently that our son was not taking in enough nutrition by bottle and said she wanted to recommend placing a nasogastric (NG) tube. The words hit me like a punch, and tears filled my eyes before I could stop them. “I know,” she said quietly.
She assured us that our reaction was not unusual, and that while an NG tube was not a certainty yet, we were headed in that direction. When she left, my wife and I sat together in silence, watching our baby sleep, still connected to monitors, surrounded by the steady rhythm of beeps, and facing more questions than answers.
Despite what felt like a major setback when the NG tube was mentioned, our next conversation with the doctor brought a sort of relief. He explained that our son’s sodium levels had normalized, every test result had come back clean, and there was no longer a need for the intensive monitoring of the PICU. It was time for the next phase of our newborn hospital stay. We would be moving to a regular pediatric room. The news felt like a step forward we had been waiting for, even if the path to get there had been far from smooth. It also felt out of step given the NG tube conversation
We had been hoping for another visit from a lactation consultant to explore the possibility of reintroducing breastfeeding. One arrived just as we were being told it was time to move.
The timing created a scene that could have come straight from a movie: my mother, my mother-in-law, and I, each loaded down with bags and belongings, pulling two small red wagons filled with everything we had accumulated; my wife in a wheelchair, being pushed by a CNA, trying to listen intently as the lactation consultant walked beside her, offering rapid-fire suggestions. As the elevator doors began to close, the consultant called out a few final pointers, her voice echoing down the hallway.
Life on the Pediatric Floor
The transition from PICU to the general pediatric floor was an adjustment. Our new room was roughly half the size of the one we had just left. Instead of a pull-out couch, there was a standard one with limited space for rest. The recliner we had relied on in the PICU was gone, replaced by a cushioned chair that offered little comfort for long stretches.
The hospital bed looked enormous for a nine-day-old, though the high rails on all sides meant we had no fear of him rolling out. It was safe, functional, and adequate for what we needed, but it was clear that the comfort and space we had in the PICU would be missed. We both started to feel like this would be home for more than a night… we felt like we were really still at the beginning of our newborn hospital stay.
We had barely settled into the new room when our new nursing team came in with the update we had both been half-expecting but still hoping to avoid: they would be placing an NG tube. The decision was made quickly, and plans were set for it to be done in a nearby procedure room. My wife chose to remain in our room, still recovering herself and not wanting to watch another invasive procedure. I went with our son so he would have a familiar voice and a gentle hand nearby.
Compared to the failed IV attempts in the ER, this was less chaotic, but it was still hard to watch. He squirmed and fussed, clearly uncomfortable, and I found myself quietly talking to him the whole time, hoping the sound of my voice might make it just a little easier for him. Within a few minutes, it was done. The tube was secured in place, and we returned to the room, both of us a little more worn down than when we had left.
The feeding tube was placed on a Friday afternoon. The following morning during rounds, a medical student was doing a routine exam when her hand drifted a little too far, and the tube came loose. She looked embarrassed, but my heart sank.
We had to return to the procedure room for another placement. This time they attempted to use a special device to secure the tube more firmly, but the moment it touched our son’s face he began to scream in panic. I told them to stop. In that instant, I decided we would simply be extra careful with the tube, and if it came out again, we would deal with another placement. That felt far less traumatic than forcing him through whatever this device required.
Fighting for Progress: The Day-to-Day Slog of a Newborn Hospital Stay
We definitely created some extra tension with people visiting us with our cautions around the NG tube. Our mothers, in particular, did not appreciate being told how to hold a baby. Never mind that neither of them had ever held a baby with an NG tube before; they thought they knew what they were doing, and did not respond well to our concerns. We managed to get through all of the extra issues, though, and his tube remained securely in until the following weekend (more on that later).
We ended up spending 12 nights in the ‘regular’ hospital room. We got to know the nursing staff quite well, and we learned the rhythm of the hospital. As with anything, some of the hospital staff were better than others. The best nurses learned our schedule for feeding every 3 hours and worked with the CNAs to time vitals checks and other necessary interruptions close to feeding, allowing us to maximize our rest times.
Doctors, on the other hand… they do their own thing in their own time, and we had to be firm more than once. The goal for our baby for feeding was 55mL, taken in 30 minutes or less by bottle, every 3 hours. At first, he was struggling to take 15-20mL, hence the NG tube. But the medical staff didn’t give him any time to build up the ability to take in and hold more milk; they went straight to completing the 55mL via the tube from the first feeding. Fairly unsurprisingly, he vomited.
We did this for just one more feed before we insisted that the doctor come back in and listen to us: we needed to work him slowly up to the goal amount, because what good is it to put milk in that he then vomits right back out? The doctor agreed to take it down to 40mL total for the next feed, and proposed increasing by 5mL if he kept the 40 down. We pushed again, and got him to agree to increases of 3mL per successful feeding.
And we tried to be realistic. Babies spit up, babies burp up. But when he was being overfed, he was vomiting. One time I was holding him, and he managed to land vomit on the edge of the bed, over 2 feet away from where we were standing. So if he dribbled a little after a burp, no big deal. Projectile vomit? Don’t increase the amount yet.
At the same time that all of this was occurring, my wife’s pumping was producing more and more breastmilk. We were still giving our son formula, but as a supplement when there wasn’t enough breast milk to meet the goal total. The nutritionist paid us another visit, and said we still weren’t hitting calorie goals, so she wanted to start fortifying. So we began alternating; one feeding we would give 100% formula, fortified with additional formula powder, and the next feeding we would give breast milk, also fortified with additional formula powder.
Could This Be The End of Our Newborn Hospital Stay?
We were on this rotation for several days, until the nurses let us know that they were going to start freezing some of the breast milk my wife was pumping, because we had such a healthy supply. The nutritionist checked back in, and updated our feeding routine to just fortified breast milk. She also mentioned that we were starting to look like we could possibly go home.
We had a LOT of questions around what going home would look like:
- Would he still have a feeding tube? Yes, if he wasn’t taking at least 55mL, in less than 30 minutes, via bottle.
- How would we give him the amount he needed via feeding tube? We would be provided with the necessary equipment, and taught how to use it.
- What if he pulled his tube out again? We would be taught how to put it back in. Seriously.
All of this was so overwhelming that the next time the attending rounded on us, my wife spoke up and told her that we simply were not ready to consider having so much responsibility on us at home, that it was too much to even consider. The attending said she understood, and that we would not be sent home if we weren’t comfortable with the extra work and learning and the thought of us being the ones to put an NG tube in our child. It’s one thing to endure a newborn hospital stay, and an entirely different thing to turn your home into the hospital.
The Feeding Tube Comes Out
We continued on our routine, and our son continued to increase the amount of milk he could take via bottle in the allotted time. We finally got to where we were having to give him less than 10mL via the tube, a few feeds in a row. And then, while my wife and I were both right there giving him his bottle, he made just the slightest fidget. It was barely even a wiggle. I didn’t even see his hand move. But his hand clearly moved, because before either one of us knew what was happening, his NG tube was completely out of his nose, just hanging there from the tape on his cheek.
We paged the nurse, and she helped us get the tape off. She was ready to schedule him to go back to the procedure room, but he had just finished 55mL via bottle within his time limit, so we asked if we could just enjoy him without the tube until the next feeding, and see if he needed it at that point. She agreed to check with the doctor. At the next feeding, he took 55mL via bottle again. And at the one after that. Since that day, he hasn’t had to have a feeding tube again.
Closing Out Our Newborn Hospital Stay
Two days after that, on a Monday, we were sincerely expecting to be sent home. Baby was gaining weight fairly consistently, taking his bottles like a champ, and not vomiting. We felt good, and with the progress we were seeing, our bodies were even allowing us to feel a little cabin fever. But then rounds happened, and we had a brand new attending, a doctor we had not seen previously. He wanted to see more progress before turning us loose. At least one more day in our newborn hospital stay.
Thankfully, the very next day the same doctor asked us, “Do you guys want to go home?” And when we said yes, he smiled and said we could start packing our things.
In total our newborn hospital stay lasted 14 days, 2 of them in PICU. Our son is truly thriving now, jumping up the growth chart. He still hasn’t gotten the hang of breastfeeding; we have regular in-home visits from a lactation consultant, and we’re seeing some improvement, but for now we have a routine of exclusive pumping and bottle feeding that doesn’t seem like it will change any time soon. And the days of hoping he would complete a 55mL bottle in under 30 minutes seem SO far in the past now, even though (as I write this) it’s barely been a month. Just yesterday afternoon he crushed a 120mL bottle, and cried for and got 20 additional mL, all in under 30 minutes.
Unsolicited Advice
My wife and I are still recovering from this adventure ourselves. Medical trauma is real, whether from a newborn hospital stay or any other infinite number of nightmare scenarios. Thankfully we have a fantastic therapist we are working through our experience with. Our son is healthy and growing, and that obviously helps us work through everything. For him, his newborn hospital stay will just be a story he’s told as he gets older, not anything with lasting effect. As for me, if there’s one thing I can say that I hope people reading this take away from our story, it’s this:
Husbands: strength is knowing when to ask for help. Be the leader in your family. Set the example. Too many men try to power through solo, and we lose some of them every day. Don’t be that guy; be the guy who gets help when it matters.
Wives: your husband needs permission and room to not be ok. Don’t demand unfailing stoicism. Give him the space he needs to lead your family.
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post about our newborn hospital stay contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. That means if you click through and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
