Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Don't Get Me Started on Legal Drugs


Today is the crucial day in our baby’s life.
I will not use her real name because I am not sure legally what I can say here because we are only temporary parents. So I'll call her Little One.

Little one's mom struggled with the misuse of prescription pain medication while pregnant. Since mom was incarcerated for 3 days before giving birth Little One was not born with the meds in her system; however her system only knew life with medication, life with no physical pain.

On Sunday she began to show signs of withdrawal and was moved into the NICU.
Excessive sucking, sneezing and yawning, muscle tightness to name a few.

The "old school" way of dealing with this situation was to medicate baby with morphine at the level mom was using and then slowly wean baby off, this took weeks, even months; we were fortunate enough to have the leading doctor on the Eastern Seaboard in this area of research and study visit Little One and use a new form of treatment. 

Little One has been allowed to begin detox right from birth and will only be given morphine if her symptoms are severe enough to need it.

So far, no morphine.

Today is day 4, today is hump day, the doctor feels as though if she can make it past today with no morphine she should be fine to detox all her own. Although he said it would really only push her chances right past 50/50. So today is the day, and tomorrow and the next day.... 

When will she come home?
We just don't know?

Once Little One makes it through her detox and realizes that people and love can sooth rather that medication she will be like any other baby born "sober".

Now I'm off to register at Target because it was recently brought to my attention that I'm gonna need some baby stuff.

Sarah has hooked me up with several baby clothes and items but if memory serves me right babies need and go through more clothes and diapers than anyone else in the household; of course if we were all wearing diapers we'd have a whole other issue going on here.

Prayer Requests:
Please be praying with us that she does not need the morphine at all.

Pray for no lasting effects of the drugs on Little One

Pray for the NICU doctors and nurses caring for her, that they'd see Jesus in us and that we would be able to speak Him to them.

Pray that this life transition would be smooth for all 5 of us.

Thank you all, this journey is never dull is it?
I wouldn't have it any other way.

6 comments:

Missy said...

I'll be praying for Little One as she detoxes. Have the doctors said what her chance of long term effects are? Is it known?

The good thing is that babies don't wear out their clothing and you've got a little one in your house that just used a bunch of them, so hopefully you'll just need some diapers! If you are interested in using cloth diapers, let me know and I can give you the run down on all the new kinds that are out there. We love them and wouldn't do it any other way - it is a money saver!

Shasta said...

I'll be thinking about all of you. She's so tiny and precious! This is going to be an amazing journey for the Spanos family.

Ditto what Missy says about cloth diapers. We used them and loved them.

Can't say I miss the diaper phase though, you're very brave to start all over again, Michelle!

Katie said...

Wow! What a journey! I will be praying for Little One and your family.

Doris said...

Isn't it funny how we think our plans will go one way, then God shows us that He has something totally different in mind? Awesome journey just beginning, and Little One is so blessed to have been born into your warm and loving family..God sure must have big plans for Little One's life..

Great idea to register at Target!! Can't wait to check out your registry...Praying for the requests concerning this new little life :)

American in Bath said...

Giant round of applause.

Anonymous said...

Well my love, we said we wanted to adopt, we'll have to wait on God to determine if this Little One is THE little one. Still feeling so blessed to be on this adventure of life with you. Roll up your sleves though, cause this adventure is gonna take some work. I'm sure that God has equipped us for a time such as this. I love you for too many reasons to list. Let's go bring her home! I'm ready...I think;)
Love-svs

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...