The Terrifying Booger

Oh, forget the stupid birth story. If I try to catch up and bring everyone up to speed with every dramatic moment, I'll never make it to today. So: Today Penelope is in the Neo-Natal ICU, she's getting excellent care, and she is in very good shape with normal preemie problems. She is supposed to stay here until gestational week 35, which means she'd be released from the pokey on Thanksgiving Day -- apropos, because we're incredibly grateful for the care she's getting. We show up every day around noon and hang out till the nurses' shift change at 7pm.

Penn gave us a run for the money yesterday. We were still waiting to hang out with her -- it was an odd day, because she'd been moved to a quieter bay with fewer kids, but her neighbor was having a lot of consults with various doctors that meant we had to scram. (I mean, thank goodness shes not having the same consults, because she's not having any surgery or anything, but still. I just wanted to hang out with my bebe, snf snf.)

It was such a busy day that when I had to do my 2pm pump, there were no pumping rooms available, and Husband was all "you can't wait! you have to stay on schedule so your body knows blah blah something something!" so we were standing in the hallway at loose ends when a nurse came by and said "oh, we'll set you up with a bedside pump." voila, ten minutes later I was hooked up to the machine and producing like the fountains at the Bellagio.

That's when Penn started acting weird. She has these "As and Bs," apnea and bradys: her breathing slows and her heart-rate drops. It sounds alarming but most of the time she resolves them on her own. If not, she gets stimulation: pat her back, squeeze her foot to annoy her, pick her up. That, so far, has always worked. Some babies need a mask at that point but she hasn't.

But yesterday she had a bunch in a row, while I was pumping and talking to my mom, and it was alarming. I unhooked from the pump while Randy and Sarah, her nurse for the day (and wonderful, as are all the nurses, but Sarah was particularly great) were checking her to see what was wrong. Sarah said she sounded a little "wet" and had to go get some kind of replacement probe at the same time. A respiratory specialist nurse (Husband says she was at the birth, what the hell do I remember) came over and started sticking a tube up her nose. Penn was freaking out. I was coming close. And then out popped... a giant booger.

Yes, a giant booger had been making all the lights flash and the machines beep and my daughter have As and Bs.

Post-booger, things settled down and we tried some "recreational breast feeding," which is also Husband's favorite thing. She's not got enough coordination to actually breastfeed yet -- she gets her food via a tube or IV, depending on the medication she's on -- but she can latch just for shits and giggles. She did it! She and Lefty are now BFFs! And later, when I pumped, Lefty was definitely ahead! So we're going to try Righty today and see if she likes that as much, and then see how Righty does in the Pump-o-Lympics.

For those who knew about this -- she had the heart scan, and the valve closed up -- no murmur.

Head scan results should be in today, but no news is good news.

Off to the hospital!