Monday, August 11, 2008

Jen Home News on Emily

Home again. It was great to be re-united with Claire after being in the hospital since last Tue. I hated being separated from her. Claire was fascinated looking at my incision and she had to check out by belly button as per her habit.

I took two naps this afternoon and managed to have just enough uumph to go see Emily this evening with my dad.

Lots of news about Emily today.
First a concern and prayer request, Emily has a heart defect called VSD or ventricular septal defect. Claire had a small VSD which closed on its own. Emily has a moderate sized hole between the two lower chambers of her heart which the cardiologist says is less likely to close on its own. He said it may cause too much blood flow to the lungs at some point which would be treated initially with medication. (I just realized Mark already mentioned this in his post earlier.) Please pray that the VSD will not put undue stress on her lungs or pulmonary blood vessels and that it will close on its own.

Good news, Emily was given a tiny bit of milk every 6 hours today and has tolerated it well so far. She has an ultrasound of the head today and everything looked normal.

She is doing very well with the nasal canula which is just providing a little pressure to help with her breathing.

They took out the umbilical line today. Hurray! this means one step closer to Kangaroo Care. I have high hopes that I will be able to hold her tomorrow.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Welcome home, Jen-- thinking of you all!

Love,

Heather

Anonymous said...

We are praying for Emily (love that name) and the VSD. Glad you are getting good naps, Jen! We'll be on our way in the morning. See you soon. Much love to dear Claire. Nanna loves you!! Your mom loves you, Mark!

MK Reynolds said...

we are praying for you all, and are so excited about Emily Ruth! :)

Anonymous said...

Jen and Mark, we are praying for each of you and especially sweet Emily all the way from Kansas! Thanks for sharing your updates and photos with us too!
The Bathurst family