The big transfer.

On Thursday afternoon I got a call from the charge nurse to tell me that Shaughnessy was going to be transferred that night to the level 2 nursery at St. Michael's hospital. I'd been expecting yet dreading this call for a while so it wasn't much of a surprise. I knew that we weren't supposed to be at WCH any more and it was only serendipity that had kept us there thus far.

The transfer was supposed to happen at 8:30 but the ambulance actually arrived early so she went around 8-ish, I think. I was about to change her diaper and take her temperature and all that stuff when they got there, so instead her night nurse took over and got her ready to go. It was a nurse who hadn't had her before and while she was listening to her chest with the stethoscope Shaughnessy started up her usual grunting and growling. The nurse tried to work around it, but eventually looked at my girl in pretend exasperation and said, 'You sound like a bear!" I loved this, since her growliness is something that I find extremely funny. If my sources are correct she'll outgrow some of this around the time she reaches her due date so I really need to cherish it while I can!

Anyhow, the nurse did get her settled into the transfer incubator out in the hallway where the ambulance attendants were waiting around. When she was done she draped a blanket over the top, saying to us that whenever people see one of these incubators they gawk at it to try to see the baby inside so it was just a bit of privacy. Then we all started off.

When we got to the elevators to go down to the first floor a huge group of people came out into the elevator area. It was a tour showing expectant parents the various floors they'd be visiting or could possibly end up visiting. It looked like they'd just come up from the high risk floor where we'd spent the first month and a half and when they all saw the incubator they looked very solemn indeed. All the moms were hugely pregnant, likely due near the time I'd been or near thereabouts. The back of the incubator wasn't covered by the blanket and we did see lots of the parents peering in trying to get a look at the preemie within. Shaughnessy was wrapped in blankets, wearing a hat, strapped in a head hugger, covered with more blankets over that, strapped down to the floor of the incubator itself and surrounded by rolled up towels so there was nothing to see but fabric.

We eventually got into the elevator and left the group behind but it was just so awkward and funny and strange. For them the reality that our daughter has had to live is what they are hoping against with everything they have, so that brief encounter in the elevator area was serious and scary and sad. For us it was anything but, seeing as how her transfer is just another indicator of how healthy she is and how much progress she's made. I know that if I'd been a part of that group I'd have felt the exact same way and pitied the poor parents walking next to the incubator, but all I felt was grateful that my girl was OK.

I rode up front with the ambulance driver and Andrew took the subway to meet us at St. Mike's. The drive over was pretty awkward because the driver had a sense of humour that I just didn't understand at all, and had a little outburst to himself where he was looking out the window to his left and muttered angrily, "I just don't give a damn!" It was unrelated to anything we'd said and anything going on around us (that I could see) so I just waited out the rest of the ride as best I could. Eeek.

When we arrived and got up to the nursery one of the first people I saw was a mom I'd been getting to know at WCH, so she and I chatted a bit while the nurse got Ms. Essie out of the incubator and handed her off to her new nurse. Then they did a whole inspection of her with the pediatrics fellow checking all of her reflexes and muscles and whatnot. After all that the new nurse dressed her in new clothes, wrapped her up, covered her with a blanket and that was it! Transfer complete!

I'm having a lot of separation anxiety about not being at WCH any more. Yes, the St. Mike's nursery is bigger and fancier and the rocking chairs are nicer and all that jazz, but it's just not WCH with the nurses we know and the familiar surroundings and all that. WCH is a hospital that I have come to have a lot of respect for and I want to give back to it in some way. Also, change sucks and in a weird way I feel very unsettled about Shaughnessy being in a place that I don't know well. It's not sensible since she's about as safe as safe can be living in a hospital nursery with medical professionals all around her, but whatever.

I did get to nurse her again yesterday which was awesome and went even better than the first time. She drank about 12 cc's before getting tired this time. I can see how it will take some time before she's able to subsist just on breastfeeding alone since she really needs to work up her strength in order to get a full feed from nursing. But it's just as wonderful as I thought it would be to be able to sit and look down at my daughter and hold her hand and sing to her while she nurses. She's awake for most of it and she looks at me and we connect. I feel like I'm more than just her friendliest nurse in that moment.