quick update then off to work...

Yesterday was a good stable day for Darbi. I helped with more of her cares again (taking temps, changing diapers..) and she got some more lasix yesterday. Lasix are like super diuretic pills. She didn't gain any weight from Wednesday but she's peeing out a ton which is good. I called this morning and I guess she had a bit of a rough night. Her blood gases were all over the place. The blood gas test helps determine how much oxygen/carbon dioxide is in her blood, among other things. They changed some settings on her ventilator and she's doing better. She's been really fussy all night so they are trying to stay out of her isolette for a while to get her to calm down. She gained 30 grams yesterday though which I was kind of confused about. The lasix should be making her lose weight, yet she's still gaining. The nurse said that a lot of it is probably real weight which is awesome! That means she's up to 690 grams or 1 pound 8 ounces!!

Being pregnant makes you dumb.. but does it ever get better??

I'm pooped! How did I work all day before and still get ANYTHING done?? Oh wait.. I didn't get anything done. Just a normal day I guess. Except the forgetful pregnancy disease has yet to flush out of my system. Maybe I'll just be dumb forever... I drove ALL the way to the hospital today WITHOUT my pumping kit! I was in such a rush to get out of work that I left it there! I wasn't willing to drive all the way home to get it so I made my Murse (Darbi's MAN nurse) go get me another one. Hopefully my insurance will overlook that and not charge me for it. :)

Darbi's murse let me give her a sponge bath today! I'd never been there for it and unfortunately, there was no one there to take pictures of me doing it. I got to touch her more than I have ever before but she didn't like it as much as I did. Her face was scrunched up and her mouth was wide open and her body was doing that heaving spastic back arch and I felt so bad! She was crying and I couldn't even hear her. :( The comforting mommy instinct is kicking in. I could tell that after she was much more comfortable and that made me feel better.

When they weighed her last night, she was 630 grams which meant she had gained ANOTHER 30 grams (same amount gained as the night before). The doctors seemed to think that was a lot and decided to give her a diuretic pill. I hope that's healthy for her.. I lost 35 pounds on diuretics and she can't really afford to lose any. They did say it would help to clear the fluid out of her lungs which is a good thing. I hope they're right. The murse will weigh her at 11:00 tonight so I'll see how much she's lost then.

Tomorrow is a slow day for me.. no work. Just an oil change for our old timer Shadow, a visit with Miss Darbi, Barnes & Noble to spend my GC, and then home to spend time with my hubby. I'm looking forward to tomorrow very much.. Then it's back to work on Friday!

More milk, work, and school...

I think that the chaos that is my life now may be rubbing off onto those near me.. I left my grandma's house for the hospital around 7:30 last night and she sent me with a ton of leftovers from the last few days. After the hospital, I headed down to Orem to stay in my own home with my hubby. I got home and Clint helped me unload the car. He put away all of the food Grandma sent me home with and we talked about lunch/dinner plans for the next day based on what she sent home. I came home with tons of food, some of which included; a bag of cereal, leftover enchiladas, and supposedly spaghetti. Clint opened the container and it was filled with SOUR CREAM. A 3 pound plastic container, FULL of sour cream! Grandma saves the large containers and sends them home with us, usually filled with yummy food from Sunday dinner... not this time. I called her and asked her if she wanted some spaghetti on her baked potato for dinner.. It was pretty funny. Maybe you had to be there.. I got a kick out of it.

Today was my first day back to work! I told Darbi's nurse last night that I wouldn't be making it up to the hospital today because of work and she was shocked that I was already going back. Then the night nurse told the day nurse and the first thing she says to me (sarcastically) when I call is "Good luck at work today.. Ha." Apparently recovery time is 6 to 8 weeks. It's almost been 4. Meh.. I feel fine. It was nice because I was busy while I was there and it helped to take my mind off everything going on. Most of what I was doing was done sitting down. It was also nice to get back to work and feel needed. I feel like I have some control in what is going on around me.

Darbi had a good night. The nurse was giving her some blood today (a normal thing for preemies) and her IV became infiltrated. The IV basically came out of the vein but not out of the skin. This created a large bruise on her foot and now they have to put ice on it 4 times a day for about 20 minutes each time. Darbi doesn't like that very much. The nurse felt really bad too because I guess that is kind of painful for these little ones. Darbi has been sedated and she's doing fine. The chest x-ray this morning showed that part of her left lung had collapsed and so they are keeping her on her right side so her left side will "blow back up". My baby is a balloon. They've bumped her up to 4cc every 3 hours and she's continuing to tolerate it! She gained 30 grams yesterday so she's up to 630 grams or 1 pound 6 ounces!! Grow baby grow!!

Clint is doing a good job of trying to keep up with me, Darbi, and his schoolwork through all of this. He called me last night and said he's finally caught up with school! We're 3 weeks into the semester and he was behind. What a trip. I'm so proud of him though. He's really good at balancing stress and he's able to use school as his getaway.

Another side note, my wedding ring finally fits me again! I don't look like a single teenage mom anymore.. I really am married!!

Chronic Lung Disease... basically.

About 10 days ago, the doctor's decided to do a culture on Darbi's lungs to see whether the haziness they saw in the x-rays was from an infection (likely pneumonia) or something a bit more serious. The results came back yesterday and she has a condition called BPD - Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia. NOT an infection - which is what we were hoping for. I don't understand all of the details but our nurse told us she will likely have to be on oxygen until she is maybe 3 or 4. From what I was able to read on the internet, it will hopefully get better as she gets older. She's not going to be an Olympic athlete but I wasn't either.. not even close. They have started her on a new treatment where they use Nitric Oxide in her lungs. The machine plugs into the ossilator and is supposed to NOT destroy her lung tissure like the oxygen in the ossilator was doing. Why we didn't do this earlier? I'm not sure exactly. The nurse told me that this is a new thing and isn't used very often but we should be successful in ensuring there is no more damage done to her lungs. It is a 3 week long treatment and after which we will re-evaluate. Clint understands this all much better than I do so he might be posting some corrections.. We can only wait right now and time will tell us the severity of it all. I think it will all turn out okay though..

She had such an awesome week last week and I've been on this high that I'm sure has a lot to do with the special pills the doctor has me on. I'm afraid to go into this week because as much as I want her to have a perfectly uneventful time in the NICU until I can bring her home, I know that she is still going to have ups and downs. I keep thinking that this perfect progress she is making can't last forever.. but then again.. maybe it could. I'm trying really hard to be optimistic. I wake up with a small anxiety attack every morning thinking that today is going to be the day with the bad news... but then I call the nurse and she had a quiet night. SO good. So I keep calling the nurse... and I keep taking the pills.

I'm starting to go back to work this week. Knowing she is so far away is going to be hard. I will go see her tonight but I won't be back until Wednesday night. I hope she's good for her nurses while I'm gone..

A first time Grandpa!!

My dad shouldn't be called grandpa yet! That's so weird to actually type that. My Grandpa Hillman is the only one.. Maybe I should come up with something else for Darbi to call him... I can't think of anything right now.. anything creative anyway.

Anyone got any ideas?

He's too young to be a Grandpa. I do know that this little girl is going to have this "old man" wrapped around her finger and she is going to get the most spoilings from him. I should put the reigns on now but I know that as hard as I try, she really will get whatever she wants. I already know if she asks for a pony.. She'll get 2!

3 weeker

Here is her 3 weeks photo. She was laying on her side (obviously...) but her head looks abnormally large. I thought it was just a funny angle and since she's not really gaining a whole lot of weight right now, I figure we can change up the pictures week to week for a little while. The nurses change the angle of her head every 4 hours so her head doesn't get misshapen.. I hope they stay on top of that. They "say" that once her hair comes in you won't notice if there's a bit of a flat spot but.. mmm.. I don't want her to have a complex about that when she's older. They had just better stay on top of it now.

They have moved her feedings up to 2.5 cc's every 3 hours which is awesome because she is continuing to tolerate them. She's "stooling" it out perfectly. I think it's so funny when the nurses use that word.. just say it. "She's pooping like a big girl!!"

Tha's right.. :)

Milk it baby!!

Tuesday morning, around 9:30ish, they did the contrast dye test on her. To do this, she needed to be transported to the 3rd floor. You can't really just pick her up and carry her there, and if they were to wheel her bed down there, they would have to follow her with her oscillator (breathing machine) and also the little machines that administer her meds and such.. The nurse sounded kind of nervous and she told me she'd rather them just come up to her bedside and do it. What had to happen was they would move her from her isolete (the plastic box thing) into another one, similar to how the Life Flight team transferred her when she was moved to Primary and apparently a lot could go wrong. I had no idea. Anyway, everything was fine. They prepped me for this LONG journey she would be going on.. I thought I'd do the same for you. I haven't blogged for a day and I'm feeling kinda rambly.. not a word I know.. ANYWAY.

They did the X-ray with the dye and the esophagus hole has officially.... CLOSED!! They even got a feeding tube down SUCCESSFULLY without puncturing her esophagus again. I wanted so badly for them to start giving her milk yesterday but the doctor was still hesitant. My little girl is so hungry, I'm sure! He ordered for another echo to be done on her heart this morning and then he said they would talk about milk. The echo showed the PDA as moderate and it was not causing any strain on the heart so... Darbi got milk today at 2:00PM. They gave her 1CC and what a Thanksgiving feast that was for her! Ok.. not really. A full feeding, in a day, is 150CC. She gets 1CC every 3 hours. Good enough though! My milk is gold in her gut!


Also, I was able to be there on Tuesday when the doctor's do their rounds and when they sat down around Darbi to talk about her, the doctor looks at her chart and says, "So this is just a routine preemie, right?" RIGHT!!!! Nothing else is seriously wrong with her at the moment and her only major problem is that she's teeny-tiny! I'll take it!

I almost forgot! They measured her Sunday night.. She's 12 inches long now! She has grown a whole inch since January 1st!

The plan for the next few days is to just continue to give her milk and let her get stronger. We will probably be doing surgery on the PDA but they haven't even talked about a date yet and we're not too worried. The doctors have told us it is a routine procedure and can be done in 5 minutes by the bedside. We'll deal with that when the time comes though.

They gave her a bow today. :)

A whole new world!

Today was such a good day! I woke up and called the NICU to see how Darbi's night was and the nurse said that when she started her shift and went to check on Darbi, she was LOOKING BACK at her!!!! Her eyes opened! I was so extremely excited! We didn't think this would happen for at least a few more weeks. It was hard to get a good picture because she wouldn't keep them open for long and it was hit or miss. So instead I took some video of her stretching and trying to open her eyes. She is so dang cute!

Other good news: They did a brain scan this morning and the bleeding they found last week is going down! There is still some bleeding but they are expecting it to go down and flush itself out in the next few days! Tomorrow the surgeons will be putting some contrast dye down her esophogus to see if that hole has officially closed up and from there, they will decide if trying a feeding tube is an option one of these days. They've been doing a bunch of X-rays and there is no free air in her chest cavity which likely means the hole has closed up but the dye test is to just make sure.

Daddy's Ring

Today we boiled Clint's wedding ring in hot water before we left for the hospital so we could get a picture of Darbi wearing it. I love it because when she's older we'll be able to tell her that she was so small, she could wear Daddy's wedding ring on her thigh.

My idea of a baby's size and weight is skewed now because Darbi's neighbor at Primary is a sweet boy named Crew who weighs upwards of 3+ pounds and he looks like a full term baby. Darbi doesn't seem as small to me as she really is and this ring picture helps put her size into perspective.

They weighed her last night and she's at 530 grams. She's gained some weight but we're pretty sure it's just water. Give it time.

Darbi's visitors

Jed came to visit last weekend and I didn't get around to posting his picture with my bluish-white glowing radioactive baby. It's just the bili light. Don't fret. What a good looking uncle!!

Introducing... Darbi's GREAT-Grandma Linda! Darbi is her first great grandchild! What an honor.. Darbi is pretty excited about it too. She told me.

Bedroom Art

We asked our nieces if they would make a sign for us to put on Darbi's bedside. We love it!! Look at the bottom.. too cute!!

Happy 2 weeks Darbi!

Thursday was Darbi's 2 week birthday! I am going to take a picture of her every week to see the change and already, in just 2 weeks, she is looking SO good!

Here she is the day after she was born. Her skin was so thin and they needed to use heat packs to help keep her warm. They even had her in a ziploc bag because that ensures the heat stays trapped near her body.


And here she was yesterday evening. Her skin has a much better coloring and she doesn't need the bili light anymore. She's looks like a little baby doll!


So I may be really putting myself out there but here's a picture of me right before I went in for the C-section. Just remember... I was on magnesium and seeing double so my eyes are a little unfocused.


And here I am today! I'd like to think that while Darbi has come so far in the last 2 weeks.. I'm doing a little better myself. You know.. I'm wearing real clothes, not laying in a bed all day, and spending much of my time staring at my beautiful little girl!

Life is alright.. for now. :)

[EDITED]

Alison: You are SO right! How could I forget to post a picture of my beautiful husband?? Here he is. He has been my rock throughout all of this and I am so grateful for him! I love you Clint!!!