Things I should have known...

We all are continuing to do well. Sadie's keeping us up a little during the night but we're adjusting. Sadie's now 9 pounds 2 ounces as of her last doctor's appointment on 3/11. It's so nice now that she's home!

 

Here's a few things that I really should have known before Sadie came home. She doesn't seem too worse for wear, though.

More Pictures and Videos

I just got the pictures and videos from the past few days uploaded. Things are going well at home. We're adjusting to life with a newborn. It's just great to be home as a family and not have to drop Aedan off somewhere and spend hours at the hospital.

Home at last!

She's home! I'm sitting with her trying to get rid of her hiccups before she finishes the rest of her bottle. I'll post more soon, but I wanted everyone to know the good news. We are looking forward to being able to be home as a family. Thanks for all your prayers!

Ad libbing

Just a quick note before I retire for the night...

Sadie's up to ad lib bottle feeding every three hours. This means that Sadie is given a bottle every three hours but it's up to her to decide how much she drinks. It's okay if she drinks 40mL at one feeding and 75mL at the next as long as she continues to gain weight.

So for the next two days, it's all up to you, Sadie. Good night, little girl. Go Sadie, go!

Back to 2/3

I'm at work waiting for 355 payroll warrants to be printed so I figured I'd take a break and update the blog. I'll be seeing Sadie this evening so I probably won't have time for an update tonight.

On Monday morning, the doctor put Sadie back on the 2/3 bottle feedings. She'll be her doctor all week except Wednesday, so hopefully her feeding schedule won't get changed again for a while. That is, unless they change it to every feeding. That would be a good thing. She's been doing alright and finishing most of her bottles.

As of last night, she was up to 7 pounds, 6 ounces. I'm going from memory, so I'll edit the blog later if I remembered wrong.

A rollercoaster ride

Sadie is a month old today!

The past couple days have been a rollercoaster ride. The last update was a good one as they increased her bottle feeds to two out of every three. Well, that didn't last too long. She did okay until Saturday. In addition to bottle feed every 2 out of three times, the doctor wanted her to drink 65-70mL within 30 minutes. At her 12:30am feeding, she took over 45 minutes to drink 35mL. She At her 3:30am feeding, she took over 30 minutes to drink 37mL so they stopped and gavaged the rest (60mL total). Because she was having so much trouble drinking the required amount within 30 minutes, the doctor reverted her back to a bottle every other feeding. On Friday, they also measured her hematocrit level and it was unchanged at 30 after four doses of epogen. At the time, this was devastating. We were so excited that she was doing so well at her 2/3 feedings that we thought it was okay to expect her to come home in a week or so. We know from experience with Aedan to never expect your baby to come home at a certain time, but it's next to impossible to do so. Saturday was a very hard day, but things got a bit better.

Saturday night at 6:30pm, she ended up drinking her full 60mL bottle within 30 minutes. Sunday morning at 12:30am, she drank 50mL. At 6:00am, it was 60mL. We gave up the idea of her coming home the middle of the week, but this was the hope we needed. We now knew that she wasn't spiraling down, she just had a tough day trying to keep up with the increased bottle feeds. Preemies tend to not like too many things changed at once. With her hematocrit still at 30, her number of feeds increased, and then the amount per feed increased, we think that was just too much for Sadie to deal with.

They did a repeat of the labwork Sunday morning. Her hematocrit was up to 34! Also, the doctor that was on duty changed the orders to ad lib feedings every 3-4 hours. This meant that they'd feed Sadie when she woke up and acted hungary as long as it was every 3-4 hours. We spent the day with Sadie today and she ended up doing relatively well with this schedule. She took her first bottle with us at 12:35pm and took an hour to drink 33mL. It took a long time, but we also had to stop to change she diaper three times as she wanted to make room. We were a bit disappointed when we left for lunch, but when we came back, Melody (her nurse) said that Sadie she found Sadie "eating her blanket" so she tried feeding her more. Sadie ended up drinking another 30mL in fifteen minutes. She started acting hungary again at 5:30pm and ended up drinking 55mL in a half hour. Then, when we got home, there was a message from Melody that she drank 45mL at 7:00pm. She may not be eating exactly the way the doctors want, but she is showing them that she can eat quickly when she wants too. We are praying that the doctor's orders stay at ad lib every 3-4 hours. With so many changes to her feedings lately, it's impossible for Sadie to show the doctors what works and what doesn't. We're also praying that she continues to do well with her feedings and continue to gain weight.

Liz is Sadie's nurse again tomorrow. Jen is going to stay with Sadie most of the day and I'm going to stay home with Aedan. There are a couple things that still need to get done in Sadie's room and there's other stuff around the house that's been piling up since we are gone so much. Hopefully, tomorrow will be another good day...

Last, but not least, she's up to 7 pounds, 1.1 ounces.

She's graduated to 2/3!

Sadie graduated to two out of three feedings now! She needs to prove she can do this and she'll graduate to bottlefeeding at every feeding. Then, once she can drink her whole bottle every feeding, she will be able to come home (as long as nothing else comes up).

She's had her third dose of Epogen today. They will measure her hematocrit level again on Friday. Hopefully the number will have gone up showing the Epogen is working.

Sadie is still gaining weight - she's at 6 pounds, 13 ounces as of last night.

Nanny (Jen's mom) got the visit Sadie for her birthday on Tuesday. Tonight, my parents will get to visit Sadie for a while.

The Long Awaited Update

Sorry for the lack of updates for the past few days. The blog was forced to the back burner for awhile as I adjusted to being back to work. It was e-rate Form 471 filing season so it was a bit hectic and I actually had to take work home. I wouldn't give the responsibility to do e-rate filing to my worst enemy. Way to much paperwork - much worse than filing taxes. I'm thankful that's all done now and things are back to "normal".

Sadie had a good stretch of eating her whole 56mL bottle for about a day and a half. She has since become more and more tired and therefore not waking up to eat. She's now only drinking a full bottle every once in a while. Her average is between 30-45mL. She is up to 58mL every feeding and is still on the every other bottle/gavage schedule.

They have been measuring her hematocrit levels for the past couple weeks. It's been getting lower every time and this could be the cause of her sleepiness. On Saturday, they measured it again and it was down to 30. Because of this, they started her on a drug called Epogen. This will help her body produce more red blood cells. Sadie will have an injection every other day for two weeks. Once her red blood cell count is normal, Sadie should be more alert and less sleepy. This should help her stay awake to finish her whole bottle.

How long is she going to be in the hospital? Well, we really don't know - it's up to her. The Epogen needs to start working and then Sadie should start progressing on her feedings again. Once Sadie shows the nurses/doctors that she can eat her whole bottle every other feeding, they will increase the bottles to two out of three feedings. Once she shows she had handle that, they will bottle feed her every time. Once she does that for a while, we get to take her home, provided that nothing else comes up. We are hoping that all will happen in two to three weeks, but we really don't know. It could be less or it could be more.

Oh, and she's 6 pounds, 9 ounces as of last night.

Will update soon...

If my evening goes as planned, I'll be posting a pretty long update tonight... There are new pictures and videos to tide you over until then.

Six Pounds!

Sadie is six pounds, one ounce today! She's doing really well in the "gaining weight" department. She still needs to work on feeding but she's progressing quite well. She's being bottlefed pretty much every other feeding now. The problem with the "stuff" in her nose is probably reflux. Holding Sadie upright during and after feeding her has drastically reduced her number of desats. She's been off the low flow nasal cannula since early yesterday.

There are new pictures and videos from the past few days, uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

Almost Six Pounds

When Sadie was weighed last night she was 5 pounds, 15 ounces. I have no doubt she'll be six pounds sometime today. The physicians orders yesterday permitted Sadie to be bottle or breastfed every other feeding as tolerated. This means that it's the nurses decision to bottle or gavage her based on how she's doing. That's great, but still needs to learn how to eat her whole bottle. The last couple times she's gotten tired and quit at a little more than half her bottle. She'll need to drink every bottle, every feeding before she'll be able to come home.

The only other problem with Sadie is that she's producing a lot of "stuff" in her nose. She's been desatting a lot lately (the percent of oxygen in her blood is going below 88%). She'll sound congested and the nurse will suction out A LOT of stuff from her nose. After that, her oxygen saturation levels are good. It may be reflux or it may be a dry nose from having the CPAP and nasal cannula. We'll be talking to the nurse/doctor about this.

I updated the pictures so there are some new ones available.

Moving Rooms

There has been a lot of room moving the past two days. One good move and one bad. I'll start with the bad first...

After we visited Sadie yesterday, I turned my cell phone back on and it said that I had a message. It was Bev (Jen's mom) and she said that she was driving Mike (Jen's dad) to the ER. Mike was burned pretty bad when he was working on his car. He was trying to fix a coolant leak when a hose came off and sprayed him with hot coolant. After his pain was stablized, he was admitted (hense moving from his bedroom to a hospital room). We visited him today before we visited Sadie and he seemed to be in pretty good spirits considering the situation. He has first and second degree burns on his abdomen, neck, lower face, arms, and hands. The doctor said that he's in the hospital until Saturday or Sunday mainly for pain management. He has some medication that he's applying to the burn sites. I don't think they are too worried about scarring.

The other move was a good one. At 3pm today, Sadie was moved from Room 1 to Room 4 in the NICU. Although there aren't technically rooms where healthier babies are taken care of, the room Sadie is in has one nurse for three babies opposed to Room 1 where the ratio is usually 1:2. She ate okay today at her 2:30 feeding. She drank half of her 40 something mL bottle and the remainder was gavaged. When I called tonight to check on her, she weighed 5 pounds 11.5 ounses. The 2 ounses more than yesterday and 5.8 ounses more than when she was born.

I finally got the photos up to date and added one more video, so you have more to look at now.

I'm exhausted. It was a busy day with work, dropping Aedan off at Madai's, going to the hospital to see Mike and Sadie, and keeping the home fire burning. Jen's already sleeping and I'm about to join her in her slumber...

Three meals a day

Just a quick update from live inside the NICU...

She's doing well. They've increased the times she can bottle or breastfeed to three times every 24 hours. That's great news as she is continuing to progress. At her 2:30 feeding she was able to breastfeed for 10 minutes and then she drank all of her 21ml bottle in 4 minutes for a new speed record.

Self-Inflicted Tubectomy

Sadie continues to do well and is progressing on her eating. She was able to breastfeed for 20 minutes today and after that only drink 9cc's from the bottle. She's tried, but hasn't really breastfed much at all until today so that was a big achievement for her.

I called the NICU at nine tonight expecting to get a report on how much Sadie drink from the bottle and how much they had to gavage at the 8pm feeding. The nurse said that Sadie drank all 40cc's of her bottle at 5:30. Five-thirty? Turns out Sadie decided to give herself a tubectomy (she pulled out her feeding tube) right before she was supposed to be gavaged so they ended up bottle feeding her. The good news is that her left cheek gets a break from having the NG (the tube) attached to it. It's the right cheek's turn. The better news is that she drank her whole bottle in 25 minutes. That's very good! She just needs to continue drinking her whole bottle every time before they'll up her bottle/breastfeeds to three times every 24 hours.

For me, my first half day back at work went well. I felt missed which was nice and everyone was asking how Sadie and Jen were holding up. I work with a great bunch of people! They even surprised me with a basket of goodies for Sadie and a gift card to Target.

Jen's recovering extremely well and is able to do more and more every day. She's almost back to normal. The pain she has laying on her side or changing positions in bed is lessening as well.

It's after 10:30 and I still haven't updated the pictures. That makes two days I owe you. I make sure I get them uploaded tomorrow. Sorry to keep you waiting!

No news is good news...

Sorry for not posting an update yesterday. Things have calmed down a bit with Sadie so there isn't as much breaking news as there was before. The main thing that Sadie needs to learn how to do is eat. She's up to 42cc's every three hours and they are adding vitamins and fortifier to her milk. She's doing pretty well at drinking her bottle twice a day. As long as she keeps that up, the next step is to let her bottle or breastfeed three times a day.

The other change is that I'm starting work tomorrow. I'll be working half days, but it will still be a significant change for both me (getting up a lot earlier) and for Jen (taking care of Aedan on her own).

I do have new pictures today, but didn't upload them yet. Sorry to keep you waiting but I need to get to bed!

Out of the Isolet, No More IV

It was another good day for Sadie. She is no longer in the isolet. She's in the same spot in the NICU but she's now in a basinette. She has also lost her IV. So the only thing that she's hooked up to is the three leads to the heart and respiration monitors, a lead to the oxygen saturation monitor, and the tube down her nose into her stomach. The doctor said that it was "quite an accomplishment" to lose her IV. The next step is for Sadie to eat enough on her own to gain weight. At her 2:00pm feeding today, she was able to eat half of the 42cc's from the bottle and the rest was gavaged.

Breathing on her own

Sadie continues to do great...

• She is now breathing on her own without any assistance.
• Her gavage tube has been moved to her nose since the nasal cannula is gone. This will make feeding her easier since there is nothing in her mouth now.
• The IV in her scalp actually didn't take so she has an IV in her hand again.
• They are going to discontinue the TPN order when it expires either tonight or tomorrow morning. I'm not sure what it stands for, but that in the order with what nutrients and vitamins are given to her through the IV. I think they are discontinuing it because she's drinking a lot of milk now.
• I'm not sure of the number, but her bilirubin is okay as she isn't on the lights.

We also talked with the doctor. She agreed that Sadie is doing great, but didn't want us to get our hopes up that she will be leaving soon. She just wanted us to continue to be realistic. She said that most babies fully develop the instinct to suck at 36 weeks (from conception). Although she might be able to bottle or breastfeed some of the time, it most likely will not be until Sadie is at 36 weeks that she'll start to feed like this all the time. She used an analogy of expecting a 6 month old to do things that a 12 month old can do. This same way, we shouldn't expect preemie at 34 weeks to do things a preemie at 36 weeks should be able to do. We both wish that a doctor would have explained it to us this way with Aedan. That would have made things a lot easier.

Have a great weekend everybody and thanks again for all your prayers for our little girl!

A Day of Firsts

Today has been a day of firsts for Sadie. She wore her first outfit today. You can see pictures on her Picasaweb album. Each day has multiple pictures so you can click on the "album cover" picture in order to see the rest of the pictures.

Feedings:
She also started getting fed from a bottle and breastfed. In terms of the amount she's eating, it is being increased by 2cc's every feeding. She was up to 16cc's (about a tablespoon) at her 10:30am feeding. They will gavage her through the tube to her stomach most of the time and bottle or breastfeed starting twice a day. They will then increase that number as she does better and better at her feedings.

Breathing:
The doctor has also ordered that she get weaned off the nasal cannula as long as she is able to breathe well without it. The nurse decreased the flow to 0.5 liters of pressure for an hour today and she did well. They continue to decrease the pressure for longer periods of time until she's breathing on her own with no extra oxygen or pressure

Her IV:
If you've seen today's pictures, you might have noticed that she now has her IV in her scalp. She's had to have her IV replaced a couple times in the NICU. Because Sadie is a bit more chubby than the normal NICU baby, it a little harder to find good veins for her IV. They spent 10 or so minutes trying to find a good vein in her hands or feet and were unsuccessful. The next step in to put an IV in her scalp. They say that it's actually less painful than a hand or foot IV and it will actually last longer. So hopefully she won't need her IV relocated for a while. My mom asked me what they were giving her though the IV and I'm sure she's not the only one. As far as I know it's just nutritional and doesn't include any medicine. If I remember right, it's some form of sugar (dextrose?), some lipids (fat), a neonatal vitamin mix, and some other things.

Other stuff:
Her bilirubin level bumped up a bit and was up to 7.2 from 6.7 yesterday. This is normal and as long as it's below 10, she shouldn't need to be on the lights anymore. She is also regulating her temperature quite well. One of the nurses said that if she's able to sustain her body temperature on her own, she'll be able to move from the isolet to a bassinet. That's another of the little steps she needs to take in order to come home. Every little step helps.

Mom and Dad:
We're doing well. Jen continues to heal from her c-section and is able to do more and more each day. The pain with her pelvis, or Sympysis Pubis Separation, is still rearing it's ugly head when she's lying down, but she's able to sit, stand, and walk with little or no pain. We are adjusting very well to getting up three times a night due to Jen's pumping schedule.

Technical Update:
If you haven't noticed, I finally got the video of Sadie being born up onto YouTube.

Making Progress

Sadie continues to make very good progress. Her bilirubin number dropped another four points today to six so they took her off the lights. They will continue to monitor her bilirubin level for the next couple days but as longs as she stays under 10 or so, she'll stay off the lights. She definitely looked a lot pinker today. She is also doing better breathing so the nasal cannula is down to 1 liter of pressure. And last but not least, they will be increasing her feedings 1cc every 3 hours. She started today with 5cc's of milk and add 1cc every feeding as long as she does well with more food.

Sadie still has a lot of things she needs to do in order to go home, but we are very thankful that she's progressing so quickly. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers!

Long road with many steps

Life in the NICU is a long road with many steps. There is still a lot of growing and developing Sadie needs to do before she gets to come home. We still expect her to be in there for a month or more. The good thing is that she is consistently making progress.

Respiratory System:
She has gone from a CPAP with oxygen levels in to 30% range down to 21% (same as normal air). Then she graduated to a nasal cannula. She's currently between 21-30% oxygen at 2 liters of pressure. The next step is to lower the pressure to 1 liter. This may happen tomorrow or the next day. Then when she is breathing fine for a day or two on the cannula with 21% oxygen and 1 liter of pressure, they'll try removing the cannula. The trick is to give her just enough support for her respiratory system to grow and develop without creating stress on Sadie.

Feeding:
She's currently eating 5cc's of milk every three hours. She has been doing well with this so they will most likely start increasing the amount they feed her tomorrow. They will continue increasing the amount and eventually she will graduate to being bottle fed. The danger with going to the bottle to quickly and it can have an effect on the respiratory system as Sadie may be concentrating on eating too much and forget to breathe. "Suck-Swallow-Breathe" is one of the main things Aedan has to master before he was able to come home.

Heart:
Looks like we are out of the woods for the most part on this front. Her hole (PDA) closed successfully with the first set of indocin. The only residual "problem" is a slight heart murmur. The name for this has escaped me, but it was caused when the hole closed. The closing of the hole created a small part of the heart that is a bit thicker than it should be. This causes a little turbulence in the heart, thus the murmur. This will work itself out as the heart grows and will not prevent Sadie from coming home. The cardiologist said the Sadie's pediatrician will be notified and will follow up as Sadie gets older.

Final Thoughts:
We're adjusting to life at home with Aedan again. I can tell he likes being home, although he did enjoy his sleepovers with Grandpa/Grandpa and Nanny/Papa. He is an extremely well balanced kid and we are very thankful that he did so well being away from us as much as he was. Jen's walking quite well but sleeping is still a core. The pelvis pain still is occurring when she lays on her side or turns over in bed. Please pray that she's able to sleep well and that the pain continues to subside whether she's walking, sitting, or laying down. Well, it's time for bed. Thanks again for all your prayers and well wishes - they mean the world to us.

The hole is gone!

The hole (patent ductus arteriosus) that Sadie had in her heart has closed up. Praise God! We got a call from the cardiologist this morning and she said that the hole was completly closed.

We visted Sadie this morning. She still is as cute as ever. She was put back on the CPAP for a while last night. They ended up suctioning a lot of stuff out of her nose and after that she was put back on the nasal canula and has been doing well ever since. She's also "eating" through the tube to her stomach and has been tolerating that well.

If all goes well with the lights, she'll be off of them tomorrow. If she does okay will the 5cc feedings, they'll most likely start increasing the amount she eats.

Home at last

It's nice to be home but it was hard to leave Sadie. We know that she is where she needs to be now, but it's still hard. After we got home, we cried a bit, slept a bit, and then Jen's parents brought Aedan and Brutus back to us. It's great having most of the family back together and are looking forward to having Aedan full time again; we've really missed him.

Sadie is still on the nasal canula which is a great sign the indocin is working. Hopefully, we will hear the good news that the hole has closed when we visit Sadie tomorrow.

It's a little after 10pm - Aedan's fast asleep, Jen's snoring peacfully, and I'm ready to join her...

P.S. There are more pictures and a new video of Sadie kicking.

Under the lights without the CPAP

Sadie has started her light therapy for jaundice. She has two bright lights shining down on her making her look like she's in a tanning booth. They measured her bilirubin level and it was at 13.9 and the lights will get this level down. It's nothing serious, just something preemie's have to deal with since their livers usually aren't working at 100% yet.

A little before noon Liz was able to take off the CPAP and graduate Sadie to a nasal cannula. So far Sadie has been doing great keeping her oxygen saturation levels where they should be.

Sadie also had her last dose of indocin. Now it's time to wait for the indocin to work and close the hole in her heart.

Jen had her staples removed and replaced with steri-strips. She's also doing very well. We are in the process of figuring out when exactly we'll leave for home today.

Holding Sadie

Jen was able to hold Sadie again tonight. But why haven't you held her yet, you ask? Well, I love seeing mommy and daughter bond. Plus, Jen's been through enough and has earned the first few times that we can hold Sadie. And last, but not least, I get to see her way more because I am the one that accompanies vistors to see her.

Sadie's status really hasn't changed all that much. She took the first dose of indocin at noon and will take the last two tomorrow - one at midnight and the last at noon. Please keep praying that the indocin will work and the hole will close without surgery.

Mom and Dad are mentally preparing for departure tomorrow. It will hit home a little more once we are way from the hospital and aren't within walking distance of our girl. I'm so thankful that she's only 20 minutes away. This time around will be so much easier than the one hour trip from Livermore to Oakland when Aedan was in the hospital.

Technical Difficulties

I know I promised getting the video of Sadie's birth posted. Well, that video was taken with an actual video camera and saved the video directly to a DVD. I having a bit of trouble converting the videos to a format that I can edit on the computer. Granted, I'm trying to do this with software I can download for free. I guess you get what you pay for...

High Tech Hospital Stay

The hospital has WiFi and I have some time on my hands between visitors, checking on Sadie, and helping Jen out. As you can see, I'm turned my e-mails into blogs. I'll still be sending out e-mails, but I may blog little things that don't make it into the e-mails. We will see how long this goes. Along with my blog, here a list of where to find everything:

Blog: http://bullfrogskin.blogspot.com

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/bullfrogskin

Videos: http://www.youtube.com/bullfrogskin

Not your normal PDA

The neonatal cardiologist visted us. I'll preface this with this: Sadie's okay and this is a normal premie thing to deal with - it just sounds worse than it is. Because she's been on the CPAP for a couple days and is not tolerating being off of it, they decided to check out her heart. Turns out she has the following: "Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA): a small hole in the heart that normally closes by itself, but may be more likely to stay open in preemies" Babies have this hole to bypass the lungs before they are born (since they aren't breathing). Normally (hole closed) the blood goes from the body into the right atrium, then into the lungs, then to the left atrium, and back into the body. With the hole, a portion of the blood goes from the left atrium back into the lungs instead of going into the body. This causes the lungs to work a little harder than they should. For more information and pictures, click here. To correct this, they are going to give her three doses of Indocin (Indomethacin) starting today at noon and happening every 12 hours. Because she's an older preemie, she has a great chance that this will work the first time. They plan on evaluating her again on Tuesday. If the hole is still present, they will try the medication again. The nurse we talked to said that she's only seen two babies Sadie's age not respond to the indocin in her ten years of nursing. But if for some reason it doesn't work, they would preform a simple surgery while she's still in the NICU to close the hole.

Prayer requests:
Please pray the the indocin works the first or second time and she won't need the surgery. Please also pray that this is the reason that she's needed to be on the CPAP and after the hole is closed, her lungs will start working to the point where she doesn't need it anymore.

Mom and Dad:
We are doing well. Liz prepared us by saying what PDA was and that it may be a possibility with Sadie. Because we already knew what it was, we weren't as shocked this morning as we could have been. I had a bit of a hard time yesterday as I realized emotionally that Sadie was going to be in the NICU for a while. My head knew it was going to be a month or more, but I guess it took a while for my heart to catch up. Jen's progressing well and it able to walk more and more with less and less pain.

Saturday Update

Morning:
We visited Sadie around 8am. She is still doing well and her CPAP is still at 21% oxygen. She was in the isolet so we weren't able to hold her, but Jen was able to change her diaper (view the video). They think the CPAP may come off tomorrow. The next step would probably be a nasal cannula. That's just two small tubes and prongs that go in her nostrils. Even though she'll be at 21% oxygen, she still needs to have the air that she breathes under a bit of pressure.

Afternoon/Evening:
She was still on the CPAP. They did start to feed her 5cc's of milk/formula every three hours and she was tolerating that well. When Liz (our friend who happens to work in the NICU) vistied Sadie in the afternoon, she noticed Sadie was a little jaundice. Aedan had this when he was born and is "yellowing of the skin or eyes because the liver has not developed well enough to remove bilirubin, a substance produced when red blood cells are broken down (excess bilirubin causes the yellow color)" This is also normal for premies. Jen was able to hold her again. This time the CPAP and all the other things stayed attached to her. Because of this, Jen was able to hold her for a half hour, which was very nice. I'm kicking myself for not bringing the camera.

Mom and Dad:
Jen's doing well and is able to walk fine. She still get's tired after a while, but she is recovering very nicely. She's slated to get out of the hospital sometime on Monday after her doctor visits her. I'm doing well. I've been able to sleep in the hospital bed next to Jen so that's been nice. I continue to shuffle people back and forth through the maze of the second floor to see Sadie. Visitors need to be accompanied by a parent to pass the gauntlet and I'm a bit more able to do that than Jen.

Friday Update

Afternoon: Sadie's lungs aren't working as efficiently as they should because she has the following: "Respiratory distress syndrome (RDS): difficulty breathing caused by a lack of surfactant, a substance that normally prevents the lungs from collapsing" The doctor has decided to intubate Sadie's lungs with surfactant. This a process where they put a tube down to Sadie's lungs to deliver the surfactant. When you breathe, your lungs come together. Because she was a preemie and didn't produce enough surfactant, her lungs were sticking together a bit. The additional surfactant helps keep the lungs from doing this. The effects on the efficiency of here lungs was almost immediate. Within 10-30 mintues (I forget exactly how long) she went from needing an air mix with 35% oxygen, down to 21% oxygen (the same as normal room air).

Evening: At 9:30pm Jen and I visited Sadie. They were changing her bedding and had unhooked her from the CPAP (the tube that gives her air) so we were able to hold her. You can see the video on YouTube by clicking here. It was very nice to see her face without the tubes in her mouth and nose.

In the NICU

Sadie's in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and will be there for a while. Aedan was born a bit later but had more issues and he stayed for 20 days. Sadie will be in the NICU for at least that long but we are prepared for a month or a little more. They really don't like to estimate with the NICU babies. She's doing well for a premie. She has some respitory issues and is forgetting to breathe every once in a while. Because of this, she has a CPAP. That's a tube that feeds air and oxygen into her nose with a bit of pressure. She'll have that today and it will be removed when she starts breathing normally.

Birth Day

Sadie Ann Ralin Howell was born Thursday, 1/17/08 at 2:52pm. She was 5 pounds, 5.7 ounces and 18 inches long. She is having normal preemie respritory issues but is doing very well for a baby born at 33 weeks.

C-Section is Scheduled

Jen's c-section is scheduled for 2pm today. Jen's blood pressure was getting high and Sadie's non stress test wasn't as good as the dr would like. Everybody's fine, it's just to the point where Sadie needsto be born for her and Jen's health. I'll keep you updated.