I'm going to try to be brief since it's already after 1am. But I just have to write about today so I can capture everything that happened before my sleep-deprived mind loses pieces of the memories.
I thought yesterday was great, but today blew it out of the water.
- First, an update on Emma: the doctor left me a message this morning to say that Emma has continued to do well. She continued to have brady's throughout the night so she was going to be put on a nasal cannula to see if that helps. She was being taken off of the bilirubin light as her jaundice levels were stable and I later found out that the day shift nurse noticed that the eye protection was squeezing her nostrils, which also led to the decision to d/c the light. After being put on the nasal cannula, she had one more brady within an hour but no more after that. She actually just now had her first one since then... I'm not sure when the cannula went in, but it was the first brady she's had since I got here at 2pm. So that's progress! Emma is still not digesting the breast milk she has been given... when they check her stomach contents a few hours after a feed, it comes out green and chunky which is obviously not good. So they did a tummy x-ray and everything looked normal. Her belly is soft and not sensitive to the touch and it seems like there's no major problem that's causing her digestive issues. So they're going to keep feeding her and hopefully she'll start digesting the milk properly. Before her 1:30am feed, her stomach contents looked much better- it was more of a light green/pale yellowish compared to the dark green that was coming out before. And it wasn't very chunky either, so hopefully the progress will continue. If it does, then they can begin increasing her feeds and will hopefully try her on a bottle feed shortly after that.
- Emma got to meet her grandparents today! First she met my parents, who were absolutely thrilled to meet her and amazed at just how small she is. She looks like a regular-sized newborn from the pictures so it's surprising to see her actual size. She really is a little peanut. I could tell my parents were almost as proud as I am and they seemed so elated to finally meet their new granddaughter. Then grandma Bev came to visit and meet Emma, her very first grandbaby! Hubby and I are so happy to give her a grandchild, even if it's just one. But one very special miracle of a grandbaby at that. While she was visiting, the nurse let hubby kangaroo with Emma and it was absolutely amazing to see. He was really looking forward to it all day and when it finally happened, he just melted. I've only ever seen him like that a few times... this kid has him wrapped around her little finger already. She'll definitely be a daddy's girl. Then Emma got to briefly meet Aunt Sharon and Aunt Joanne while daddy continued to hold her. Since she's off the light, he got to hold her for an hour. He's probably still smiling from ear to ear from being able to hold her. And Emma was the happiest and most content I've ever seen her... she slept almost the whole time with her mouth hanging open. But at first, she spent a good amount of time looking around and staring at her daddy, who gazed lovingly into her dark little eyes. It's an image I'll never forget... there was just so much love being cycled between them and it made me feel like I was going to burst from being so happy.
- I'm staying the night in the NICU to get a feel for it. It's not quite so important to do right now because it doesn't make much difference to her if I'm here or not. But I'd like to see what it's like because I'll be spending a lot more time here as she progresses and gets closer to going home. At that point, I'll be able to do most things on my own and can hopefully breast feed her. The nurse this afternoon showed me how to help with hands-on time. I love how they encourage the parents to be as involved in her care as possible and I'm sure most NICU's do it too. Her hands-on time occurs when she's fed... I'm allowed to take her temperature under her armpit, wipe her eyes with saline wipes so no crusties form, put alcohol on her umbilical stump, and change her diaper. I'm getting much better at changing the diaper of a squirmy preemie :)
- I got to hold her for an hour and a half tonight! It was absolutely awesome. We had just finished hands-on time and she was very upset and crying. She is usually soothed with a pacifier (a great sign that she'll bottle/breast feed well when it's time!) but was very fussy when it would fall out. So when the nurse was getting ready to transfer her from her bed to my chest, she started wailing. That kid sure has some lungs, even if they aren't fully mature yet. The nurse brought me the pacifier just in case she couldn't calm down as she was still crying when I was first holding her, but she instantly stopped crying and snuggled right in. She fell asleep and slept for just about the whole hour and a half, again with her mouth wide open. She had little dreams and her feet would twitch and her eyes would flutter open at times but for the most part, she just slept peacefully. She would make little noises with her mouth sometimes and would occasionally coo. I talked to her a bunch and told her about our family and our home and my hopes and dreams for her as I gently rocked her.
- She's currently sleeping peacefully. Her respirations have been high so the nurse is going to mention it to the ARNP. She was put on her belly for the first time and she's very content, so we'll see if she can tolerate it without having any more brady's. So far so good!
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