1.22.11

False alarm!
Harper decided she liked her friends in the NICU too much to leave them just yet. She had a couple Bradys today. Technically, she has to go "spellless" for 5 days before they will send her home.
Here's what's happening. Once they took the NG tube out, they lower her bed (she has been at a slight incline this whole time). The problem is, that incline has been helping with her reflux. Now that it's lowered, she has lost that reflux help. Plus, she's been quite gassy today, so when she bears down to deal with that, some of what's in her stomach comes back up (yummy). The reflux causes a drop in her heart rate. While the increased reflux is a preemie thing, most babies heart rate drops when they spit up, so that's not a totally an uncommon occurrence for babies.
So, where does this leave us? Well, Dr. Stapley said that the spells they really worry about are Apnea spells when she forgets to breathe while sleeping. They definitely want those to be gone when babies go home. Thankfully, Harper doesn't have a problem with those. Bradys are a little different. They aren't as worried about them, especially when they think they are being caused by something like reflux. But, they want to make sure that if she is having Bradys, that they are indeed being caused by reflux and not something else. At this point, if she continues having them, they will incline her bed again and tell us to go buy a wedge for her crib at home. Let's hope this is the case.
Matt and I will most likely still do our "room in" tomorrow night. This is where we will stay the night at the hospital and take care of her all night while the monitors are still on, so the NICU staff can see that we can take good care of her. If they don't feel we can take care of her on our own, we will have to spend more "alone" time with her there (boy, I can think of some parents of some of my students that should have had to do that before taking their babies home).
It doesn't sound like we will have to necessarily wait the standard 5 days spell free because of the types of spells she's having, but I'm all for making sure that we go home feeling as comfortable as possible taking care of her. Back to the waiting game.....yup, a 2 month old child is in control of the situation....hard concept for control freak mommy to deal with. :)