Lily is a little over a month old now, a month and 8 days old to be exact. Last night she was moved out of the NIC-U and into a room on the pediatric floor with her friends Briealle, Trinity and her sister Serinity. This is the "big girl room", it is our last stop before we finally head home.
Friday we attempted bottle feeding for the first time, Lily was just not ready. We we're told by the Doctor's that it would probably be around 36 weeks before she wanted to try, simply because of her size, and how small her stomach was. Saturday morning Lily proved that we are doing things on her schedule, not our schedule, not the Doctors schedule, just Lily's; Lily took her first full bottle early Saturday morning around 3a.m.! Since then Lily has continued to take about every other bottle, sometimes back to back bottles - depending on how tired she is at the time. Once she drinks every bottle for 48 hours we can get rid of her feeding tube & see her pretty little face without anything else on it. No tape, no cords, no tubes.
She is also holding her own body temperature much better. At one point we we're almost out of the box in a "real crib" & then Lily decided she just wasn't ready. Technically she is holding her own temperature now, but they make them work for it. They don't put them in air conditioning obviously but they pull them down below room temperature to see if they can keep it up. Currently we are one degree below room temperature and we have one more to go before we say so long to "The Box" for good and move into a open air crib.
She has continued to breathe on her own consistantly for weeks now. At one point she would stop breathing approximately 13 times a night. Now it seems that she has gotten the hang of this whole breathing thing & hasn't stopped at all since. Until yesterday she was on caffine daily, now this is the real test, will she stop breathing without her caffine helping her out some? She hasn't had any "bradys" or "apnea" since they discontinued it & we have faith that we won't see any at all again.
Things are looking good at getting home before Christmas! I am very ready to have her home & Jared is way past ready for his little girl to get home and snuggle her up! To get our little girl home she has to take her minimum amount of food from a bottle at each feeding, she has to hold her body temperature & she has to go 7 straight days without stopping her breathing at all. As you can see, we are so close to "breaking out of this joint." Just a few more weeks! Stay strong Lily, we are so ready to have you home with us.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
She is perfect, absolutely perfect.
After Lily was born, they allowed Jared to follow them to the NICU while she was admitted, poked, stuck, and put in her "box". He was able to take pictures, and Dr. Faruque even stole his phone for a few good shots. He brought the pictures to recovery to show me and just seeing her on the phone made my heart melt. Once we got back to the room I got the awful news that I wouldn't be able to actually go see her for myself for 24 hours. Can you imagine having your child 11 weeks early and THEN finding out you can't go see her for a DAY?!
We had wonderful nurses, and sweet NICU nurses who came to steal our camera to take pictures for me. They came by and gave me updates and of course Jared spent a lot of time in there with her.
Finally it was my turn... I thought I was prepared for how small she would actually be. I knew she was breathing on her own, I knew she was healthy as could be, I knew the Doctors were blown away at how well she had already done, but I also knew, she was VERY small, but not small enough to take my breath away, right? Wrong. You can not prepare yourself to look in a incubator and see your 2 pound baby looking back at you. You can not prepare yourself to see your child whos arms are the width of your index finger. You just have to take a deep breath and realize shes okay, shes healthy and perfectly fine, she just needs to grow. But WOW! How do you even begin to explain to people how small she is? Because trust me, people ask and the word "tiny" just isn't cutting it.
At 3:00pm they finally let me hold her, they took her out of her bed, put her against my chest and she laid there for a hour, happy as could be. I could barely feel her against me but she was there and it felt soooo good to finally be able to touch her, kiss her head, hold her!
And then it was Jared's turn to hold her, squeeze her, kiss her. Seeing them together was so sweet. I'm not calling any names but one of us was crying and it wasn't me or Lily. ;) He most definitely is head over heels in love with his little girl, that is for sure.
She is the most perfect, beautiful, incredible little girl in the entire world. We should have just named her "pretty".
We had wonderful nurses, and sweet NICU nurses who came to steal our camera to take pictures for me. They came by and gave me updates and of course Jared spent a lot of time in there with her.
Finally it was my turn... I thought I was prepared for how small she would actually be. I knew she was breathing on her own, I knew she was healthy as could be, I knew the Doctors were blown away at how well she had already done, but I also knew, she was VERY small, but not small enough to take my breath away, right? Wrong. You can not prepare yourself to look in a incubator and see your 2 pound baby looking back at you. You can not prepare yourself to see your child whos arms are the width of your index finger. You just have to take a deep breath and realize shes okay, shes healthy and perfectly fine, she just needs to grow. But WOW! How do you even begin to explain to people how small she is? Because trust me, people ask and the word "tiny" just isn't cutting it.
At 3:00pm they finally let me hold her, they took her out of her bed, put her against my chest and she laid there for a hour, happy as could be. I could barely feel her against me but she was there and it felt soooo good to finally be able to touch her, kiss her head, hold her!
And then it was Jared's turn to hold her, squeeze her, kiss her. Seeing them together was so sweet. I'm not calling any names but one of us was crying and it wasn't me or Lily. ;) He most definitely is head over heels in love with his little girl, that is for sure.
She is the most perfect, beautiful, incredible little girl in the entire world. We should have just named her "pretty".
Friday, October 21, 2011
Happy Birthday Lily!
On Tuesday we were admitted into CVMC due to pre-eclampsia. Lily was measuring small and we needed to be monitored to prevent anything bad from happening. We went in knowing the odds of us delivering early had obviously increased but weren't definite. I have to admit that I never thought we would actually deliver early. I knew that although the Doctor's estimated our stay at CVMC as "days that may turn into weeks." we would blow them away by turning those "weeks into months." three months to be exact.
Two days into our stay, we met with a specialist from CMC, Dr. Ernest, who after reviewing our ultrasounds let us know it was in our best interest to deliver that day, on Thursday. Turns out the Doctors guess was a lot better then mine. We made it two whole days, 48 hours. Most definitely not long enough. From what I understood Lily had started sending blood back out of her body and the amount of blood she was getting from me just wasn't enough. She had been fighting for approximately two weeks prior to us knowing and she was ready to come out and join us regardless of us being ready or not.
I was induced around 6 pm on October 20th, a few hours into my "hard labor" Lily's heart rate started dropping and would take awhile to come back up, so Dr. Faruque decided a C-section was her safest way out, so at 3:53am on October 21st, 2011 sweet Lily found her way into this world.
She is so beautiful. So happy. So healthy. So tiny! But she is here, and fighting just as hard as she can! Thank You Lord for my sweet, sweet girl.
Two days into our stay, we met with a specialist from CMC, Dr. Ernest, who after reviewing our ultrasounds let us know it was in our best interest to deliver that day, on Thursday. Turns out the Doctors guess was a lot better then mine. We made it two whole days, 48 hours. Most definitely not long enough. From what I understood Lily had started sending blood back out of her body and the amount of blood she was getting from me just wasn't enough. She had been fighting for approximately two weeks prior to us knowing and she was ready to come out and join us regardless of us being ready or not.
I was induced around 6 pm on October 20th, a few hours into my "hard labor" Lily's heart rate started dropping and would take awhile to come back up, so Dr. Faruque decided a C-section was her safest way out, so at 3:53am on October 21st, 2011 sweet Lily found her way into this world.
She is so beautiful. So happy. So healthy. So tiny! But she is here, and fighting just as hard as she can! Thank You Lord for my sweet, sweet girl.
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