Saturday Evening - Emma's Status

Emma Brielle Flores is such a strong little girl. As everyone who is still reading knows, she has been breathing on her own since just about the minute she was born. After 8 or so hours they doctors extubated her and she has been breathing between 21 - 24 % oxygen. That has been such a miracle for us, as so many new borns have major respiratory issues. We are not out of the woods yet, but we are very thankful for her little lungs.

There are a couple of main things we were worried about from the beginning, her lungs and her bowel development. There are whole list of other things, but these were some of the ones we were pointed out right away. A couple of the terms we hear a lot in NICU journey are Apnea and Bradycardia.
Apnea is a period when breathing stops, and likewise a Brady (Bradycardia) is a period when the heart rate stopes or falls below 80 in permies.

Emma has not had a ton of Bradys but she has suffered a few. Luckily during her first 48 hours she was able to recover from all of her Bradys and apnea on her own. Nurses did not have to do anything to get her to recover, but none the less it is something we would like to avoid. As such she is getting small doses of caffeine every morning and they seem to be working well. As I am writing this she just had a little Brady but I think she does it just to make sure she has my attention ;-)

With all of this we are very happy with her progress and how she has done so far. She is so strong I can't believe it. Last night the nurse had to change her sheets and asked if I would like to hold her...um yes please!!!! It was awesome just feeling her little weight and how strong she is. I was amazed at this tiny little person and all that she does. 

Our road from here is pretty basic. No major road blocks so far, she has been breathing on her own now for 5 days and eating regular milk now for 3 days. Her bowel movements are good and urine output has been normal. She is of course tiny so that means she needs to eat and grow. Her weight dipped after the first night from 1.8 down to 1.7 and then down to 1.6. She had held 1.6 for two days and this evening she is back up to 1.7. These are all great signs to us and we could not be happier. 

Knock on wood and prayers offered, if she continues this pace we may be able to leave this section of the NICU in a few weeks. We are not getting our hopes too high and we are taking things one hour at a time, but that would be our next major goal. To do that she would need to maintain her breathing and raise her weight to over a 1000 grams. Right now 1.7 is 771 grams so we still have a ways to go. She is eating milk now so hopefully she can keep on growing and holding down those calories. 

If she leaves this section of the NICU we would be moved to the 8th floor where she would be on the feed and grow plan. Just waiting for her to get bigger at the point. 

So other than that things are good. Bianca got to change her diaper this evening and Emma is back in her cool girl glasses with the lights back on :-) 

She does have a small cut (well an abrasion on her inner right arm that has been dressed, which more than likely is the result of her skin sticking together and her moving to fast. She is a squirmy wormy that's for sure. 

I will update again tomorrow on her progress! Thank you all for your love and support through this next stage of our journey!