11.27.10

Thank you for the great comments!! I'm kind of excited about doing this. Other, than the fact that I think I will be able to keep all of this information straight (pregnancy significantly destroyed my brain cells :) ), but it will be a great way to keep everyone updated.

Yesterday, we spent a good chunk of the afternoon/early evening up with our little pumpkin, and Matt got to hold her FOR 2 HOURS!!!! The nurse got tied up with another baby, so he got a pretty extended session with her....I'm so jealous! But I guess I've held her more times, so it all evens out. Mom got some amazing pictures before they left us to have our little family time.

Even with her infection, the doctor came in and told us that Harper had a very good day yesterday. Yay!!

This morning, we called for an update and here is what we got -
They upped her oxygen just a little, so when she has her "Brady" episodes, she won't have to work so hard to get her respiratory rate back up. "Beth - when you say "Brady" episode, are you referring to an episode of the Brady Bunch?" Excellent question, no, I am not. A "Brady" episode is defined as the slowing of a baby's heart rate from its usual range of 120-160 per minute to a rate of less than 100 beats per minute. This sound very frightening, but is really is EXTREMELY common with preemies. It's almost like they forget to keep their heart rate up. Sometimes, when a baby has an episode, you have to stimulate him/her in some way to "startle" them, so they "wake" up. It only takes a couple seconds for their heart rate to return to normal.
Harper (who has about 5-6 Bradys a day) has always been able to bring her heart rate back up on her own though, she's never had to have any additional stimulation. So, the reason for the oxygen support is when her heart rate drops, so does her oxygen. It has not been a problem for her, but why make her work harder to get her heart rate AND respiratory rate back up? They didn't up it very much though, just a little.
They did a test on her blood to see the level of antibiotic saturation and it was a little low, so they will give her a little more. It's okay that it was a little low, that just means they weren't over medicating her. Nothing has shown up yet on the blood or urine culture, so we are still not sure what type of infection it is, but they are doing another CBC tomorrow to check her immature blood cell level to see if the antibiotics have helped. She still doesn't act like she's sick, so that's always a positive.
Her sodium level has returned to normal, so they will take her off the additional sodium support today.
They will resume her feedings today at noon, but with only 2 cc's. Start her off slow and then check after 2 hours to see if she has digested anything, if she has - great. If not, we will reassess at that time. In the future, I will mention something called "residuals". She's being fed through a feeding tube, so they hang a syringe (minus the plunger) from the top of her bed and then add the milk to it and it slowly drops into her feeding tube and into her belly. Typically, after 4 hours, they put the plunger back into the syringe and suck out anything that is still left in her stomach to see how much she was able to digest - that is the "residual". We always hope for no residuals, that means she digested everything. That's how we knew something was up the other day, because after a feeding of 5 cc's, she had a residual of 5 cc's. They gave the residual back to her, but it took her almost 12 hours to digest it. That's why they stopped the feedings to do some investigating. Hopefully, whatever was keeping her from digesting the other day (infection or just giving her too much) will have worked itself out, because her bowels looked good on X-ray. I want her to eat! Good grief, our freezer is quickly filling up with milk, she needs to get going!

That's all for now. Off to see her shortly.