Friday - 10 days - emotional roller coaster

Everyone told me that the NICU was a roller coaster, good days and bad, and I honestly thought "Nah we have been through so much we should be good....we can handle this."

Well the NICU is a roller coaster and there are good days and bad. First off - let me say that I am not ignoring the blog or posting things that happen, I just never thought that having a baby could be so much work even when they aren't home with you. Funny right - babies are work...go figure. Between working again full time and driving a few hours a day from the house to the hospital I just have not had the strength to stay up to write. I have the best of intentions, but without those long hours of downtime while Bianca was pregnant, it is much harder to find time to write. I promise I am trying and will do better :-)

So today marks her 10th day on this earth outside of the womb and fighting! She has had more bradys and a couple of nights where she just decides to take breaks on breathing all together, but man she loves to keep me on my toes. She is fiesty that is for sure and loves to be the center of attention :-)

The other night she had over 20 bradys and that was finally the point where enough was enough. We talked to the doctors at rounds the next morning and they suggested we do a deep deep suctioning of her throat and nose, and guess what we found....a mucus ball about the size of a small pea. Now given her relative size a pea is HUGE. Well removing that she did much better go figure. This is now part of her regular routine.

She does have great bowel movements and urine is a-ok. She even nailed poor Adrian (one of our night nurses) right in her hand with a little ball of...umm....well poop. She has begun getting fussy and crying more though and let me just say baby girl has some lungs on her. I never thought I would enjoy hearing a baby's cry, but I lover hers. Ive been told to wait a few more months and I may change my tune.
Overall she is doing well and hanging in there. Today she received her head ultra sound and there was no blood, which was our best hope for her. That doesn't rule out everything, but means that her little brain is doing well and has not been damaged.

Here is today's problem; she is up to 4cc of milk a feeding, but she did not eat past her morning feeding at 9am. She had a bit of green bile at 11 and at 2 she had lots more. The doctors called for an xray and found her intestines to be a bit "loopy". I wondered if this was a true medical term and to an extent it is. Her little intestines should look like little balls in an xray and packed in tight together. She has a few that are elongated and sort of well loopy and looked to be enlarged. Two things this could be right now; either she is passing some stool and that is making her uncomfortable or this may be the beginning of an infection. We are hoping to rule out the second tonight at 9pm CDT where we will have another xray and hopefully see the loopy bowel to be restored to a normal state. If its not, then she is going to go back on heavy antibiotics and we are going to stay very close to her.

The main thing we want to avoid is infection. Since she is not eating well right now she cant continue on her normal track until she is feeling better. This is a minor bump in the road, but for us is part of the emotional roller coaster we live daily. Between calls and visits your mind starts wandering places it shouldn't and you can't help but get nervous about every call and every little thing. I will update again once we know more after 9pm.

Other than that she is doing well, she is growing and she does still wiggle all over the place. She is so cute I just want to pick her up and squeeze her all the time. Well that brings me to the good news of the day. Emma's humidity has been lowered over the course of several days and tonight marks her last drop down to 45% humidity (heck we live in Houston - we could have just left her outside the window...am I right...well.....ok tough crowd).

What that really means is tonight we get to hold baby Emma for the first time since she was born 10 days ago. If all goes well she gets to be in our arms and we get to love her up close. (darn I knew I should have shaved - see I have this thing with my brothers in law that we would not shave until she came home, the thing is I never talked to my brother in laws about it so its really just me, and its not so cool when I type it all out, so I am going to shave tonight).

Expect more pictures forth coming if we get to hold her tonight.

Thanks all for the love prayers and support! Ronald McDonald donation information coming soon too...