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February 27, 2008
The bug eyes are emerging
Every day it seems like Allison's eyes "bug out" a little more. She is looking more and more like Quinn as she starts to fill out. Just thought I'd warn you so when I finally get pictures posted I won't get emails like I did with Quinn about her buggy eyes :-)
Posted by terri at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
Day 24
Allison had a pretty good day today. We got a scare this morning when her monitor went off with an apnea alarm. This was the first time she had an apnea (no heartbeat for greater then 20 seconds). It's hard to know if it was a false alarm or not, I guess they will let us know when they do the download after two weeks. She was very still and startled when I touched her after the alarm went off. I notified Dr. Morris and said to call if she ever has another one and then we will probably need to do more tests...
Posted by terri at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008
Day 23
Everyone stayed home today to enjoy Allison's first official day home. Jason and I were pretty tired having been up a lot for Allison's overnight feedings. She has to eat every three hours and even though she only eats about two ounces each feeding, it takes her a full half hour to get it down. Add in the diaper changes and burping and it's easily an hour. Last night she was a bit fussy with gas I think. She doesn't really cry much but moans and grunts when she's uncomfortable and likes to be held.
Since Quinn's schedule didn't change, he was up and full of energy - tough on his two exhausted parents. He was so good with Allison all day though. He kept going over and checking in on her saying "She's just too cute!" or "She's so beautiful". What a sweetheart!
Posted by terri at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)
February 25, 2008
What's she going to eat?
During dinner I caught Quinn heading over to "share" his hard boiled egg with Allison. I tried not to yell or freak him out so I calmed explained that Allison doesn't eat our food - she just drinks her bottle. "But what is she going to EAT? How is she going to get big and play with me?!?" was his reply. It was difficult for him to believe that all she gets is a bottle with milk in it but hopefully he's got it now!
Posted by terri at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
Allison is home!
Allison is 3 weeks old today and did we get a nice suprise...
Yesterday the NP told me that there was no way Allison would be going home today so I got a bit of a suprise when I went into the SCN this morning. When I got there Nurse Donna said "Go ask Dr. Malcom if he is going to complete his mission today.". So I asked him and everyone started cracking up. Apparently this morning, Nurses Donna and Linda K. had downloaded the Mission Impossible theme song and when Dr. Malcom came in for his rounds, they played the song while they posed with black sunglasses on. They then gave him his "mission"... to get Allison home today!
Dr. Malcom talked to me for awhile about Allisons weekend test results (all good/expected for a premie) and that if I was comfortable, they were ok sending her home today with the monitor. They will be downloading the monitor data every two weeks and as soon as we get through a two week period "brady free" she can come off of it. We'll need to maintain her SCN schedule for consistancy for the first couple of days (feedings every 3 hours) but after that we can start feeding her on her demand, spacing them out with 2-4 hours between feeding being the max.
Jason and I went back to pick her up at 4pm and all of the nurses were so nice and excited for us. They stuck a note on the back of Dr. Malcom's wheelchair that said "Congratulate me, I successfully completed my mission today!". It was so funny!
Allison was so intrigued by the outside world she didn't sleep at all the entire way home. We stopped to pick up Quinn on our way home and he was so excited and suprised to see Allison. When we got home it was time for her feeding and Quinn really wanted to hold feed her - and he did a great job (no Bradys!). Jason gave her a kiss while Quinn was feeding her and Quinn looking up hopefully asking "I can kiss her too?". He is so gentle and loving with her. After her bottle we put her down to get some good rest and he went around turning off all the lights so she could sleep. He constantly peaks in to check on her. Tonight he even wanted to sleep in the same room by her. I'm sure the jealousy will come out but right now he's just being so terrific, we coulndn't ask for anything more.
It is so great having Allison home with us, I just can't explain!!!
Thanks again for all your thoughts a prayers!
Posted by terri at 10:54 PM | Comments (1)
February 24, 2008
Day 21
Allison is doing good... She didn't have any more Brady's overnight but she had two with me this morning. One while she was sleeping in my arms and the other right after her feeding. I spoke with the Nurse Practioner Pana and she thinks it will be another couple of days before Allison is home. All of her tests came back good/expected for a premie. The Cranium Ultrasound was clean (no brain bleeds, thank God!). The EKG showed the murmer which is a PPS (peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis) which is typical in premies. The Echocardiogram showed that she has a hole in between two chambers of her heart. This is also typical for preemies and it typically closes on it's own by 3-5 months of age. If by chance it doesn't we'll need to explore surgery to patch the hole sometime in the future. The "team" is going to discuss her case tomorrow and decide what the next steps are. None of the test results showed anything that was causing the brady's so they think they are just from prematurity and that she's a little slow working past them. I guess 85% of babies resolve them by 37 weeks (which she hit last Wednesday). So she's not a quick learner, but she's a cutie so I think we'll keep her :-)
Posted by terri at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2008
Day 16
Allison is continuing to grow... she hit 6 pounds exactly today... And I literally mean exactly - they measure premies in grams. The speech therapist came to her 9am feeding to evaluate her. They assessed that she is a "gulper", meaning that she doesn't swallow with every suck. She takes several sucks, lets her mouth fill up then gulps the milk down. It's during these gulps that they think the bradys are occurring, since premies naturally have a hard time remembering to do more then one thing at once (suck, swallow, breath...). So they wrote up some suggestions and stuck then to her isolete. Hopefully that will help things resolve. Two of the other babies left today and one more is expected to go home tomorrow. Two of them started as 3 pounders also 34 weeks when they were born so we are hoping our time is coming too...
Quinn was cute in the waiting room today. I had gone to the mall for a quick haircut earlier in the day and brought him back some "clearance" valentines day candy. There was a red ribbon on the wrapper that he wanted to save for Allison. He was very anxious when I was opening it not to ruin it. It was really cute.
I ran into a really good sale at Macy's while I was at the mall too... If you bought 5 or more things you saved 50%. I found two really cute dresses that might work for Kristen's wedding and Easter. It's so much fun shopping for a little girl!
Posted by terri at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)
February 18, 2008
Day 15
Allison is officially 2 weeks old today!
I had a great time spending the afternoon with her. I never seem to get her to eat as much as the nurses but she still ate more than her minimum (38 cc). She took around 45 cc's at noon and around 55 at 3. She now weighs 5 lbs 15 ozs!
Allison is still having the Brady Carios during feedings so Dr. Ashely is going to have a speech/nutritional therapist come in and develop a feeding plan for her to see if that can help eliminate them. There seems to be one particular night nurse who seems to log them so I got the impression that they thought it might be her feeding technique. However, she had two today both while I she was sleeping while I was holding her and the nurse said they were false reads... so I wonder if that's causing some of the confusion? I guess these Brady's typically resolve around 37 weeks which Allison hits on Wednesday. Still sounds like they would like her to have a couple days totally Brady free before we bring her home so I we are looking at mid to late week at best. There's also a chance that if they continue after she hits that 37 week mark we may be sent home with a monitor. As excited as I am to have her home I'm nervous about having that monitor. But for now we'll just have to wait and see...
Thanks for your continued prayers!
Posted by terri at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2008
Day 14
We had a great day with Allison today. I went in for her noon feeding and discovered they decided to move her feedings up by 1/2 an hour. So I didn't get to try to nurse or feed her but it was still nice just to spend time holding her. She has a bad yeast infection and in on medication (a cream). She is such a good baby, she doesn't fuss or cry at all even as uncomfortable as it must be for her.
All of us went back in for her 5:30 feeding. I got her changed and fed her for the first half hour then Jason burbed and held her for the 2nd half hour... until 6:30 when they "close" the nursery for an hour changing of the guards. Nurse Donna offered to take some pictures of me with Allison while I was in there. When Jason and I switched places I took Quinn to peak in the nursery windows when Nurse Donna called us back over to the door. She had us come right inside the doors then went and unhooked Allison and brought her over for a family picture. I was so appreciative. I just love seeing Quinn and Allison together, he is so sweet with her.
After our visit we went out for dinner. We let Quinn pick... he picked Red Lobster and wanted "fries and chicken". Jason and I weren't sure they had fries so we mentioned that to him... He was so funny he adamantly explained that yes they do, he just had it there with Baboo and Yia-Yia and we just didn't know cause we weren't there with them...
PS: Happy Birthday Katie!
Posted by terri at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)