Friday, May 5, 2006

heartbeat drops/upped food again

Well, we had good news and bad news today.  The bad news is that the doc was considering removing her nasal tube but then she had a short little heartbeat drop and he decided not to.  I guess it was very quick, by the time the nurse had turned around and saw the monitor that was beeping it was already going back up, but the doc was right there at the time and saw it too.  So, it will be at least another 24 hours, if she does not have any more episodes, before they will try taking out the tube.  Once they remove that she will be breathing completely on her own. 

They still can't get a central line in.  She wasn't sure if they were going to try again tonight or not.  They've tried twice now, several times each try, and no luck.  Poor little thing!  At least during this she's asleep, they sedate her slightly so that it isn't hard on her.  Her IV in her head was going bad so they had to remove it and put it in her hand, at least they said they got that on the first try.  She said maybe tomorrow they might start lowering her IV fluids and see how her glucose level holds, if it holds OK and they can wean her off that, then we can remove the I V completely. 

She is up to 12 cc's of milk at each feeding, every 3 hours.  They said that is more than some 36 week babies, she's 30 weeks today.  There's a baby that is exactly her age that is only on like half that.  She's doing FANTASTIC on that.  They are really pleased with how much she's eating and that she's digesting it all.  Thank goodness my milk is coming in well, pretty soon she's going to be drinking it all!  Right now we're just freezing a lot of it. 

This weekend we are staying at Scott's company appartment downtown, they told us we could use it whenever it is empty which is most weekends at least.  That helps a lot because now we're only 10 minutes from the hospital instead of an hour.  We can go to see her more often and then it won't be as hard on Brendan because he won't have to sit in the car so long.

When we went to see her late this afternoon, I went in first and got to hold her.  Instead of doing kangaroo care they just swaddled her and let me hold her, like they did for my mom last night.  I liked that b/c then I could see her face really well.  She kept trying to look at me while I was talking to her, trying to find my voice, but she was still kind of sleepy from the meds and couldn't keep her eyes open.  Then I went to relieve Scott after 45 minutes or so, and we had figured that only one of us would be able to hold her but the nurse said instead of putting her back in bed, she would hold her until Scott got there.  So, I rushed out and got Scott and he came in and held her for a few minutes, until they closed for shift change.  Brendan had been acting up a bit for him, it's hard for a little guy to keep occupied so long, and it was a little challenging for me at first b/c I can't chase him.  Then he was playing with a little boy about 6 months younger then him and the little boy hugged him.  Brendan hugged back and they ended up falling over, with Brendan on top and the poor litle boy cried.  I felt SO bad!  The dad assured me it was fine, that he played with his older cousins all the time and had had worse, but still.  After that Brendan and I found one of the pumping rooms so that I could pump and he was good as gold in there, which surprised me.  I was woried b/c I need both hands to pump and I was convinced he was going to try to get into stuff but he just sat on the floor and played with the basket of toys in there.  He sat in the same spot for over 20 minutes and was good as gold!!  We picked up dinner and came up to the appartment, which he really loves.  He especially loves the balcony overlooking downtown, he's not afraid of heights at all but we are a little so we try to keep him in here LOL.  Getting him to sleep was a bit of a chore, he is in our bed and we had to sit with him until 10:30 to get him to sleep, but maybe once he gets used to it he'll go to sleep better.  They have 2 bedrooms but I know he won't sleep on his own in the other room, at least for now.  At least it is a king size so I have some room LOL. 

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