Getting Ready

Grandma and Grandpa came out to help get ready for K's first birthday party tomorrow. They cleaned my house and raked my yard...what good in-laws!

K is turning into such a good 'helper'.

Just look at her smash those leaves down! Good thing she has that belly to help out! For those in the midwest, yes, we are raking leaves in January...I would say sorry but more so I feel wonderful that the only snow I see all year is on the mountains around us. I get a great sense of satisfaction knowing I won't have any more frozen eye lids, ears, fingers, toes...you get the idea! :)

Hey, you can't open that til tomorrow!

4 Pounds!

Hooray! Little girl is doing much better. They have taken her off the Hudson prongs and have her back on her nasal canula. I was able to hold her today and her eyes are only slightly swollen. She is still only eating 10cc/3hrs, but they are planning to increase much more rapidly this time around. Sadly, she is having nose bleeds due to the prongs in her nose tearing it...they are not worried medically about it, just that it will make her further uncomfortable so pray she will get back to the shorter prongs again. On the plus side, she is four pounds today!!! AND she has graduated to preemie size diapers!!

Getting There

Well...she had a very rough 36 hours. She is back on the Hudson prongs (the big nasal tube things)...she is not intebated so that is still a huge deal. She was in a lot of pain this morning and so they started her on morphine again. They did not start her feedings either until tonight. They are starting with just drops again. We are very optimistic that they will take her off the vent tomorrow and start really feeding her as well. Please pray for her recovery. Her eyes are still very swollen. Hopefully I will get to visit tomorrow before M goes to work and after we clean the house.

Oops...(yeah, B didn't understand me)

(Yeah, M here. B misunderstood me and did not put in the last pic of when I got to see her. EG fell asleep on me and was so peaceful, I told the nurse to take a pic. That was the pic I was refering too)!

I know very few of you know how small K was when she was born but she was 6 pounds even and she was in preemie clothes for the first several weeks of her life. So I was rearranging the nursery (to fit two babies :) ) and I saw these. They are her prints from when we got her home. The black ones are Emily's the same number of days after she was born. Em's look tiny next to K's but K's look tiny next to a 'normal' sized baby. I know we weren't designed to have big babies, but this is out of control. :)

Another interesting fact is that according to Emily's size, they estimated her gestational age at 24 weeks, 3 days. When they completed a battery of tests based on everything from flexibility to muscular development, she came out at 26 weeks and 0 days...SO they compromised at 25 weeks and 0 days. And THAT is where we got her estimated gestational age from.

Success...so far. :)

Emily is out of surgery and she is still on her nasal canula. Yeah! Her primary nurse was back on today so I am actually glad they had to put it off...she said she just stood there and held her (put her hands on her) and talked to her the whole time. She stayed calm and didn't desat once (forget to breathe). The dr thinks she got most of what she was after but will check her eyes on Tuesday and if there are any blood vessels left, she will do a second surgery that night.

She is doing well except she is having trouble breathing while she comes out of sedation so pray for her to just keep breathing. They will resume her feedings starting tonight and if all goes well, we will try to nurse again tomorrow.

For those praying for my milk supply, it is back up! If she can start nursing, that should help a little too, but it isn't a magic cure since once a day isn't the amount of hormones we are really after, but we will gladly and willingly take whatever we can get!

Wednesday Now

The dr got too tired to try a second surgery tonight (after a long day in the clinic) so they are going to do it tomorrow sometime. Please pray for strength for Emily so she can keep breathing and keep her heart beating throughout the time she is sedated.

A couple of pics for the road.

Is that a smile?

Look where this pick line is...now she will be bald from her forehead across her left temple...yipee! Her hair was just starting to grow back in too. :(

Remember when her fingers couldn't even wrap around ONE finger? Look at that...TWO fingers.

Holding on to her gavage tube.

Stage 3 ROP and Swallowing

How do you deal with a day like today? If I figure it out, I will let you know. Unfortunately it has only just begun.

It started by Emily latching on...yes, you read that right. We put her to the breast just hoping she would stick her tongue out and get the idea that milk comes from the breast. Then she up and started sucking and even swallowed. She shouldn't be able to do that yet. She even got enough that they had to alter the cc's they gave her at her next feeding.

Then the surgery. Emily has stage 3, level 2 ROP for those who know what that means. For the rest of us, ROP is a way to describe the condition of a premature baby's eyes (since they never had a chance to form). Stage 1 means they will be near-sighted and need glasses. Stage 5 means they will be blind. Stage 3 means the blood vessels are growing incorrectly and have formed scar tissue. They are going in with the laser to try to stop the growth of the blood vessels and hopefully prevent her from going blind. Best case scenario she will have bad vision and need glasses (legally blind...but don't let that scare you too much, her Dad is legally blind). Worst case scenario, it doesn't work and she continues to progress toward stage 5. Statistics say its a 50/50 shot.

Honestly, the drs are more worried about her getting sedated. If she can't keep breathing, they will need to reintebate her and we will start over with the entire vent process. She will also not be able to breast feed. In fact, she is back on the IV until she is conscious enough that they feel comfortable giving her food again. Will update when we know anything.

Eye surgery tonight.

Please pray for Emily as the dr just called to let me know they did another eye exam and something is very wrong so they are going to go in tonight with the laser and try to fix it. I really don't know anything yet as they will update me and get my consent when I get in there this afternoon but I wanted to get everyone praying before this happens. Please specifically pray against severe vision loss and blindness.

Pics of our CUTIE!!!

We celebrated my bday and K's while my parents were here...

She's the same size as the bag :).

What's in here?

Look at the nice hat and scarf Grandma made for me!

Since she has 6 teeth now, we had to teach her to brush them. It was surprisingly easy. She thinks she is such a big girl!



Look at me on my stool!

Now that she is walking, I thought she would tolerate dresses again...

...not so much...we ended up like this. Ever since she started crawling, she has gotten really mad about wearing dresses...they just get in the way!