news

I was discouraged and disappointed and frustrated Saturday afternoon when the nurse practitioner said that the Doctor doesn't want me to nurse until I've had a course of antibiotics. I had suggested this course of action to the doctor last Wed. and she said it wasn't necessary. (This was before she got the results about the second batch of milk testing positive for staph.) On Friday they had the results and it was the charge nurse's understanding that the doctor did want me to nurse. ARG!

Anyway to be told this Saturday afternoon after the urgent care clinic near us is closed and have to wait till Monday morning to see my OB/GYN to get a prescription was most frustrating. I got there first thing this morning with no appt only to find out that the doctors were in surgery and wouldn't be back till the afternoon. I gave the nurse the info from the breast milk culture so she would know what to prescribe. I finally picked up the prescription this evening only to find that it was partially filled. They gave me only 3 pills because they are out. I have to go back tomorrow to pick up the rest.

I asked the doctor today about an alternative to bottle feeding called finger feeding but I didn't make myself clear even though I described the process several times. I brought in some written info from Dr. Sears website this afternoon and hope to discuss it again tomorrow.

Good news. Emily doesn't have an IV anymore, just the PIC line. She only has one kind of medication now which she is getting with her formula.
She is 3 lbs 6 oz.

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.

NICU follow up

We went to Claire's first NICU followup clinic appointment this week. The Doctor and Nurse were both pleased to see how much progress Claire has made since her discharge from the NICU. The Ocupational Therapist who assessed her suggested getting some OT on a regular basis to make sure Claire keeps up with development of fine motor skills.

Claire has been taking bigger meals (4-6 oz) and having some longer naps (up to 90 mins). She also only eats twice during the night now instead of 3 times. We've had to swaddle her snugly to get her to sleep recently because she is restless from itchiness.

Green Clean came today. I didn't reach the goals I had set for myself two weeks ago for organization of the house. We did make some progress. We still haven't finished with the kitchen cabinet project, so we have a few boxes of kitchen items in the dining room and living room.