On August 29th I received a call, had I ever had a child with a tracheotomy? As a matter of fact no. They had a 10 year old with a tracheotomy that needs a temporary placement until another foster family gets back from vacation. She was in the hospital because they had no one to take her and was I willing to learn? Sure why not. I went to the hospital and met the little girl. The nurses showed me how to take care of the trach and what medical equipment I would take with us. Then the DHS worker came to meet me. He was so happy that she could go to a home he told me he owed me one. OK I want a baby, the next one you have to place call me. He said," Really"? Yep! He told me to follow him so I did right into the NICU. There in an incubator was the smallest baby I had ever seen. He weighed 2lb 8oz and was 12" long and was a week old. It was hard to see his face due to all the tubes but I had never seen such small hand and feet in my life. He would have fit in my purse. His nurse said he probably wouldn't be ready to go home for 3 months, he was born at 26 weeks no prenatal care and bio-mom did a lot of drugs. The worker looked at me and said do you still want him. Now that was a stupid question, he sure didn't know me to well.
The little girl stayed about 2 weeks and I didn't really hear anymore about the baby, which isn't unusual until they are ready to go home. So I was very surprised to get a call the 3rd week of October, I had to go to the hospital to learn C.P.R., apnea training, how to give him his 7 medications and the importance of making sure he is fed 40cc of a high calorie formula every three hour around the clock. As I was leaving for the hospital I got a call from the social worker who informed me the baby could not go home, he had just stopped breathing and had to stay another week, but I was more than welcome to come take the training and hold the baby. Don't have to tell me twice I was there.
When they handed me Anthony I was afraid he would break. There was nothing to him so tiny and beautiful with a head full of blond hair and big blue eyes, he weigh a whopping 4lb 5oz. So I visited him everyday until it was time to take him home. But before we could leave they had to do a car seat test on him to see if he could breath in a sitting position. He failed so they gave him a lay down car seat that looked like an egg cut length wise in half. Weird but it worked, so homeward bound we were.
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