Sunday, December 2, 2012

8 a.m.

Aubrey had one episode during the night, but the nurse this morning said the only monitor beeping going on so far was for high oxygen saturation (that's good).  She gained 15 grams--not enough to bump her up to the next ounce (so she's still 2lb 8oz), but at least it's a gain.  Adam's taking a mental health day off from work, so we're going to go to church and then hang out with our kid.

-Keli


1920 hours  (7:20pm)

It's embarrassing that me, the big tough guy, has limits. I reached that limit yesterday. But I knew that limit was reached, and I called my supervisor and asked him if he could spare me being off on such short notice, and with no hesitation he said I could be off. Thanks.  And thanks also to all the hugs that everyone gave me, and all the kind words. I am so grateful for the army of support that we have. The stress is just getting to me I guess. I am ok though.

It's different having a baby in the NICU. At church today, they asked all the little ones to come up, and well, we have a little one, and ours can't make it to church yet. So Keli burst into tears accepting the gift on Aubrey's behalf that was given to her from the church. A Christmas decoration. We will take it and decorate the her condo with it.

We went to see Aubrey, and she is doing good. Keli let me hold her, and I did for about 20 minutes then let Keli hold her a few minutes. She was great with me. She would open her eyes, look at me, then close them. I have only seen her blink her eyes a couple of times, mostly she just opens and then closes them. Today she just opened and closed them. So we talked about a few things and she went back to sleep. I handed her back to Keli, and after a few minutes her oxygen level dropped and her heart rate dropped, and as she was turning blue, the nurse grabbed her and put her in the condo, shook her a little, got her to take a deep breath and then she was ok. Argh. We know logically that she has greatly improved. I mean, thanksgiving week she was doing that several times an hour. Now she only pulls that trick once or twice a shift. It's ok to hear from the nurse that during night shift she had an episode, but when it happens in your arms, its tough. When she comes home, she will have a monitor that will alert us when she pulls that stunt so we can tap her feet to remind her to breathe. That part of her brain that we take for granted in our grown up bodies, still hasn't developed. But it will. So we just sat there the rest of the time, stared at her, and then let Keli's parents in to see her. We were caught dozing a little while sitting in front of the condo.

Tomorrow they will look at taking the iv out of her neck. There's a name for it, I can't remember, I will have to ask Keli. They don't need it in her now, they can give her orally everything she needs, or they can install an iv in her arm if needed.

It's amazing how much they have to do to her every few hours. Several times a day, they have to unplug everything and throw out all the iv lines and vials that were connected to her. Then they install new ones into the machine, check vital signs, and reposition her. They throw out so much to prevent infections, and reposition her to prevent bed sores among other things.  They weigh her every night and I took a picture of the stats that her bed was keeping on her. They change her diaper, (and oh by the way she has graduated to the next bigger size of diaper, now its not the extra small preemie size, but the preemie size) and then weigh the diaper and record it. They change her bedding daily if not more and adjust the siPAP mask on her while suctioning out her mouth of extra saliva and milk being refluxed out.

They use grams for weight. You can Google for a conversion. The temp is on the left, top number is what the bed actually is, bottom number what it is set at. Lower left hand number is something else that I can't remember.

Pray for continued growth, and infection free days. And for her parents. Especially her mom, and especially her dad.

- Adam