Earlier in the day, the nurse practitioner came up to our room and told us that both Sophia and Annabel would be getting an IV line put in through their umbilical cord stumps because they had both had a hard time keeping IVs in their little veins. They did the procedure on both girls this afternoon and everything went very well! The hope is these IVs will stay in for about 2 weeks so that they won't have to keep poking our little ones.
We also found out that the surfactant seems to be working--Sophia's blood gas levels are significantly decreased (which is what we had hoped for)!!! This is a big deal, and as of right now, she is beginning to heal herself, and hopefully won't have to get another round of the artificial surfactant. They will continue to watch her overnight and do more blood work and an x-ray in the morning.
In other Sophia news, the hole in her lung seems to have sealed, and if that remains the case, she will have her chest tube removed tomorrow as well. If her chest tube is in fact removed, we will be able to hold our little Sophia for the first time tomorrow!
She also began receiving my breast milk in her feeding tube instead of the water, sucrose, and protein mixture that was being fed to her previously via IV. Right now, she gets 2 ml (yes, milliliters!) every three hours, but we are very excited about it.
Cross your fingers that she continues to make progress! The nurses, nurse practitioner, and neonatologist (newborn baby doctor) have all told us that there is a chance Sophia could get better quickly and even catch up with her sister! When I asked the nurse practioner if these were all typical concerns for a 35 weeker, she responded that it's typical in preemies but maybe just a little "dramatic" for a baby of her age-- I guess she takes after he mom! We have all joked that it will be interesting to see if "dramatic" will define her little personality as she grows.
Although we haven't been able to hold her, she is already very clearly a daddy's girl. There can be three doctors working on her (and thus upsetting her), and as soon as she hears her dad's voice, she is instantly soothed.
That's all the updates we have on Sophia, and we are hoping for the best and everyone is still confident that she is going to be just fine in due time.
Little Annabel continues to be a rock star preemie. Her main objective right now is feeding and growing and tanning under the bilirubin lights that David so eloquently explained and ....reflected upon... in our last post. We still get to hold her and snuggle her for 30 minutes at each feeding time, so that's good news. She has the most expressive face I've ever seen on such a tiny baby and loves, loves, loves being held. So far, she has been getting her milk from a feeding tube and occasionally a little syringe dribbled in her mouth, but we decided to try to put some in a bottle tonight and try to feed it to her (she has to be able to either nurse or bottle feed all the time to be able to come home) and she was a CHAMP! She sucked down her 3ml in seconds and had no issues whatsoever with it. She then sat up and burped a good burp. David and my mom were both there and it was a very exciting event!
David even got to change a poopy Annie diaper! :-)
David and I will be heading home tomorrow, which is bittersweet. While we are looking forward to going to our own home, it breaks our hearts that our baby girls will be staying behind. The hospital is only about 10 minutes away from our house, but we already know how hectic it has been visiting them just a floor away! We are still working out a schedule, but our hope is that someone (either me, Dave, my mom or sister) will be there for the majority of the girls' feeding times and beyond. It's going to be a crazy few weeks until they come home....and it will only get crazier from there!
I think that's it for now...we so appreciate all of your kind words and your care and concern for our family. It's going to be a long and winding road, but in the end, we will have our girls at home with us ready to meet you all!
Love, Mary
Mary & David,
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad Sophia is improving! This blog is great!