Worlds better

Well, you think something like the ventilator will happen and it'll just be the worst thing ever, but I got there today and it just wasn't as awful as I'd thought. It just looked like a tube down her throat and at least she was breathing. Even better, she was active, squirming around, and her color was excellent. Her blood-gas tests show improvement every time, she is "overbreathing" on the ventilator (breathing on her own, outside of what the ventilator helps her do), and though she's still very sick, things are really looking up.

And now, a Q&A:

What was the goddamned virus?
A something-cocchus. My brother-in-law the interventional cardiologist (ooh la la!) stopped by today, asked a bunch of questions, and gave our course of treatment a big thumbs-up. He also confirmed that, well, if you're in the hospital, that's where the sick people are, so it's pretty common for babies to get sick with this particular virus, which is just sort of floating around all the time.

What about the meningitis?
SHe's already testing negative for it. She's on antibiotics for it and they are carefully watching to make sure there are no side effects. The worry is the kidneys, but she's "peeing like a race-horse" in the words of her nurse, so um... yes, the world's smallest and slowest race-horse seems to be ok in terms of the inflamed meniscus.

And the frigging yeast?
Yeah, I don't get this one. But it's in her. Yeast is "always around," you can't get rid if it because it's always supposed to be there in small quantities; when things get imbalanced, the yeast overgrows. She's on an intravenous antifungal (eeeyuw!). There is a slight worry that the yeast could grow on her retina or her heart or her brain, but that's highly unlikely and they'll be checking for it in the next few days.

So if she's doing so stellar, what's with the ventilator?
Slow down there, Charlie! She's getting better -- she's not Superbaby. It'll take some time for her to heal, but they are thinking they'll try to take her off it as soon as tomorrow. What they do is turn it down and look at her breathing. If she seems like she has the energy to breathe on her own, they'll take it out. We're just waiting.

The thing is, she really hates the ventilator. She hates the CiPAP mask. She hates the IVs and tries to kick them off. She hates all the stuff. Anyway, so the sorta bad news is that when they intubated, they had to give her some morphine (doesn't hurt her, and I don't want her in pain, so ok). And then she was just really mad, furious, wiggling around the minute she started feeling well enough to realize she had a thingy in her throat, so they also gave her Ativan, an antianxiety medicine. I thought this was weird, but then I saw her heartrate kept going up dangerously high, and I couldn't calm her down with my magic mommy hands, so I said OK, and then she was comfortable. As unhappy as it made me to think of her drugged up and sacked out, I recognize that she really has to have time to heal, and fighting the ventilator is just going to cost her precious energy.

Randy and I sat with her for a few hours, as I sang into the porthole. I wasn't able to hold her today so this'll have to do. Our friends Murphy and Haili came to visit her -- Haili had her first baby at 6 months, and she was 4 lbs, and that little girl is now a stunning 21 year old, so I was grateful to have their good example paraded before P. Plus they brought the cuuuutest presents.

As predicted, I no longer resist The Pink. When all I had were preemie clothes in boring ol' boy colors, I wasn't even tempted to bring them in, but now that my editor and friend Leslie has sent over rose-sprigged onesies, I can't wait for her to get better so I can dress her up again. Crap, I have to get iron-on name labels!

so so so -- things improved immensely and only show signs of getting better. ptui ptui ptui.

Oh for shit's sake!

And now my child has a yeast infection! Wuh tuh fuh!

I knew those spandex diapers were a bad idea, but I just can't resist retro '80s preemie chic. Darn me and my priorities.

big scary vocabulary words

I'm going to say some scary words in this post, so keep at the top of your mind the fact that P is resting comfortably, that her blood-gas results (an indicator of her health) are slowly getting better and better, and that she's on all the correct antibiotics and responding, albeit slowly.

Penn has an strep infection, most likely something she got from me while being born, though it could also just be something random from being handled over the past two weeks. It's one of three bugs -- the culture will show what it is today.

In babies, it's very easy for an infection to spread from the blood to the brain, so she also has meningitis, which is much less dire for her than it would be for an adult or an older child. It was caught very early and the treatment is the same antiobiotics she is on for the strep infection.

This has really exhausted her -- she needs all her energy to fight the infection -- so she started having some trouble remembering to breathe. So last night she was put on a ventilator. This gives her the chance to relax and recover without doing the extra work of breathing. She will be off it as soon as she is feeling better, and she should be feeling better in a matter of hours or days.

Again, her prognosis is excellent. Nobody is worried about her survival. The worst-case scenario is that there's a slim chance she could have "some hearing issues" or "some learning disabilities." And that's a slim chance. So just sit tight and hang in there and there'll be some good news soon.

Baby's First Setback

I'll preface this entry by saying Penn looks much better and is going to be fine, but she gave us a bit of a turn today.

This morning, as I was pumping, I got a call from the NICU (man, that's a number you don't want to see showing up on your "incoming" list). It was Kay, the nurse-practitioner on our team, saying that Penelope seemed to have an infection and was put on antibiotics. They were checking her blood gas and culturing her blood and pee to see what the infection might be, but in the meantime, the antibiotics would start work. Her symptoms were lethargy and slightly elevated temperature, so they were watching her carefully. I guess "mellow" was a precursor to "sick."

When I got to the hospital, I was a bit surprised at what I saw. Penn looked, in a word, awful. She had been moved from the almost-all-better bay to the shit-this-kid's-sick bay, she was out of her onesie, she was back on a CiPAP mask. Worst of all was her color: mottled and kind of grayish-yellow in tone.

Luckily my sister was there, because I really didn't handle this all that well. After the past few days of the pink, alert baby you saw in the earlier posts, it was heart-wrenching to see her back at square 1. But as I sat with her (unable to hold her, but I put my hand on her chest under a blanket), her color steadily improved. She opened her eyes twice, when she got hiccups, and cried a little, which I found reassuring. She sure didn't feel good.

But as I said, her color was vastly improved by the time I left (at around 7:30), and I have corroboration on that: my birth doula works at the hospital, and she saw her in the a.m. and in the p.m. and agreed she was much pinker. Her blood gasses came back showing a little improvement already.

She may have to go visit Uncle Billy Ruben -- she did look a little sallow.

They are re-checking her blood gasses right about now; I'll call in an hour for those results.

She's off her feeds till she feels better and back to IV nutrition.

As for where the infection came from, that's anyone's guess. Obviously I blamed myself, figuring i didn't wash my hands well enough, but the nurses insist that preemie immune systems are just crappy, and while this doesn't happen to every preemie, it happens to many. They just get worn out trying to grow, and when they're worn out, they get sick.

So, no pics today. But more soon. One of my editors sent a huuuge box of the most adorable preemie clothes from her baby (2 weeks early). As soon as she's feeling better I'm going to put the one that says "early bird" on her for a photo op.

Oh dear. My breasts are responding to this stressful day by witholding milk. Ladies! Rise to the occasion, please!!

Mellow Day

Today was a perfect day, and I don't mean that in the Lou Reed sense -- we just had a nice mellow time. I guess I'm figuring out a routine: wake up, pump, eat breakfast and walk up the hill, pump, do one or two errands, get to hospital, pump, hold baby, pump, Husband arrives and holds baby, and then we go home and I pump or I pump and... well, the evenings are still getting worked out. But at least I feel like there's a rhythm to the day.

Today I got to the hospital nice and early to find that P has gone up to 20 ccs per feed (30 ccs is an ounce), is tolerating it well, and has gained 30 grams. I don't know how much that is in American. She's also peeing enough that we no longer need to weigh her diapers -- her "output is adequate." Would I prefer that her output be described as stellar? Of course. I'm an east-coast overachiever. But hey, it's the preemie ward -- there's plenty of time to catch up.

Not to jinx things, but she has gone an entire day and night with no bradys (her breathing has been steady). Of course that doesn't mean she won't have one again -- many preemies have several "good" days and then fall back a bit -- but it's encouraging. I have no doubt she's making steady progress, but it's nice to have tangible proof. There's nothing we can do to hurry it along, of course. Her "dumb preemie brain" will move along at its own pace.

Anyway, after an active and alert day yesterday, she was totally sacked out today. She was fed in my arms and then spent the next 2 hours fast asleep, which is why my post tonight is less than lively. It's very soothing but I feel weirdly comatose.

Guess who her nurse was tonight? Penelope! A grown up Penelope. Who said indeed, she was a little embarrassed to have such an unusual name as a little girl, but now she likes it. And who didn't want to be Penny (her mom is Penny). I was just glad to finally meet her after hearing about her from everyone else.

Anyway, buh. I'm tired. And today was good. Which is great. And that's all she wrote.

Yes She Can!

Well, if I was ever inspired! I just got a text message from my brother-in-law, who said "What changes will P see in her lifetime? It began tonight." I'm so happy and proud of the world I have brought her into. I can't wait to bring her canvassing with me as I went with my mom. This was a good, good day for Penn, for the country, for everyone.

But it was annoying for me. I voted and took a little run-walk up the hill, and then went into a black hole of dithering before I got myself to the hospital. I had to pick up a prescription, argue with the insurance company, shower, pump --everything took longer than it should have, because I'm used to having Husband around. (I also didn't have the car today.) And then I had to check in with the doctors again, who took my blood pressure (repeatedly, every 10 minutes for an HOUR) and declared it a little high, but acceptable while I'm on the medication. So. I take this stuff for 6 weeks, check again, and if it's still high I start making major lifestyle changes (which I'm making already) and managing that.

Anywho, as for Miss Main Event, she continues to thrive. At this point she barely has any of the Bradys (where her breathing dips or stops). What she has is these hyper high-heartrate things: the machine beeps, I look up, her heartrate flashes red at 202, 206, 210, and I look at her -- and she's got a peeved look on her face while she tries to crawl out the porthole of her isolette. I kid you not, she moves her entire small bulk around in there in a way that she is not supposed to be able to do. Anyway, so those alarms are a lot less alarming. And usually, when she gets really mad like that, it means a wet or dirty diaper. Which I still think are cute!

Anyway, all these annoying interruptions just meant that by the time I shook off the doctors and pumped, I had barely 45 minutes to hold P in my arms. which was hard and upsetting but the nurses were so gracious and made as much time as possible for me. And tomorrow I'll be there earlier, with fewer dumb errands to run.

They are feeding her more and more -- she was up to 16 ccs today, so her gut is fully awakened and she may be able to drop the IV nutrition in favor of my own concoction. Which is awesome.

Lori, today's nurse, said she was all set to give her a glycerine suppository when she pooped -- I contend that she saw it coming and said "ALL RIGHT ALREADY! I'll poop!!"

She was amazingly, amazingly alert today. I was with her for about an hour before I had to go meet with the doctor, and her eyes were open the whole time, just looking around. She loves the sun, turns her head toward the light whether she's on her tummy or on her back.

I was actually chatting with the lactation consultant when my breasts felt like they were on a cheap date with an overzealous swain. Randomly. I said "wow, I must be ready to pump, this kills," and she said "your milk just came in -- your baby's calling for it." Simultaneously creepy and cool.

I still cannot figure out how to put video on this darn thing -- i have to ask my sister how she does it. For now, fotos.

Not The Day I'd Planned

So today was a little odd! I'll just start out by saying everything's completely fine now. And it started out great: Randy went off to work, I had a little walk up the hill, felt like a million bucks, was getting ready to run some errands and head to the hospital when I looked at the calendar and realized I had a doctor's appointment. It was supposed to be a quick peek at my stitches, since my regular ob-gyn hadn't been at P's birth.

The thing was, when they did the routine blood-pressure check, all of a sudden everyone started giving me the hairy eyeball. What? WHAT?! Turns out my blood pressure was so high, they didn't want me driving anywhere in case I had a seizure. Fantastic. My doctor had me do blood tests at his hospital, but wanted me examined at the one where P is, so that if I had to be admitted, I'd at least be near her. Stepson drove me over and Husband met me there; they took my blood pressure a bunch of times, and sure enough, it was high. They put me on medication and it came right down. I'll go in and check it out again tomorrow, and if it's ok, I'll just stay on the medication for 6 weeks. What they think is that I was preeclamptic when I gave birth, but it all happened too fast for them to figure that out. Or it was very mild and is only showing up now, which happens sometimes. I dunno how it all works. All I know is they freaked me out but they swear up and down that I'm fine.

Poor Husband has had about all he can take. He deserves a medal for all the worrying i'm putting him through. Everyone be very very very very nice to him.

Anyway, at this point it was after 7:30 pm and the night nurses were on. Husband was exhausted but he was a great sport; he'd gotten an hour with Miss P while i was hooked up to the endless blood-pressure machine, and I hadn't seen her at all. It is collossally amazing to realize how much you can miss someone, especially someone who weighs less than a grocery bag of pasta. Jackie, tonight's nurse, took her out and she latched right on to Lefty. I mean, she went to town. In fact, and this is weird because it's IMPOSSIBLE, when Jackie went to feed her right after that, she found some food in Penn's stomach, and it didn't look like leftovers from the last feed. It's entirely possible that she actually got milk out of me at Week 31, which, in case I did not mention it, is technically impossible.

So all you (imaginary) a-holes telling me she is not really smiling, SUCK ON LEFTY.

Oh! My gosh. Also, they put her in a onesie today. I plotzed. It was white with little pink flowers on it. I thought she wasn't allowed to wear anything! I can't upload the photo at the moment, though, because did I mention the day I had? Instead, all you get is this machine, which is the thing that shows us her heart rate, her breathing, and her blood gas. We're supposed to ignore it and focus on the baby: as long as she's nice and pink and we can see her chest moving as she breathes, she is OK. But how do you ignore such a thing? It keeps beeping! (Honestly, it's actually reassuring. And it's fun to try experiments, like breathing deeply while she's on me and seeing if her breathing becomes more deep, which it does, because I am all-powerful mommy goddess.) (for now.)