In the morning I went to see her right away, surprised to find that she was no longer intubated instead she was breathing with a respirator. The day moved on with trips back to my room for meals and Mommy duties. Unlike most women I really felt completely fine, like I hadn't even had a baby. Nurses were surprised to find me sitting on the couch spending some quality time with Joshua instead of in my bed.
For Joshua you could start to see the toll the 5 days away from Mommy and Daddy were starting to take. No matter who he was with he missed everyone else. He did really enjoy the play table in the waiting area between my room and the NICU.
Thursday and Friday have kind blurred as far as Abby goes. She was doing great, they continued to step her down on the O2 rate and pressure. Travis and I spent most of the time figuring out what all of the monitors mean.
On Friday I was discharged and went home for the afternoon to get myself organized. I took things a little too quickly and realized that I needed to slow down because my body was still recovering. I spent my first night at the hospital which gave me the chance to just sit.
We found out that she had a murmur in her heart due to an open vessel between the heart and lungs. This vessel kept the oxygenated blood from circling through the body. After an echocardiagram the doctor decided to start her on a medicine called indocine (like ibuprofen) to shrink the vessel. During that time her feedings stopped. After 3 doses over 36 hours her next echocardiagram looked much better and they could no longer detect a murmur in her heart.
The nurses took their time to help me learn how to care for Abigail. We are able to help with what they call "the cares" - taking temperature, changing diaper, repositioning, and changing leads if needed.
On Saturday Travis spent the night at the hospital and Joshua and I had the evening to ourselves as my sister and Travis' parents went home. It was great to spend some quality time with Joshua. We made supper together and had some down time watching Disney Jr. before taking a bath and getting ready for bed.
With the different labs that are taken routinely to check lots of different things in her blood, it was time on receive her first blood transfusion as well. They cross match the blood to my type and hers.
Abigail continued to do well with her oxygen level and pressure on her respirator. She spent different days on and off of the bililight to help her body break down the bilirubin in her blood. With a little assistance she had a big bowel movement.
Through Monday and Tuesday she started to have lots of Brady and Apnea episodes where she would drop her heart rate and breathing. Sometimes she would recover on her own and other times she would need assistances. Because of her immaturity it is a normal occurrence, but the doctor decided it was time for her intubation tube to go back in to giver her more assistance breathing.
This happened on Tuesday afternoon and was not a fun even to watch. Thankfully the doctor was able to get it done and since then she has been doing better.
Her weight at one point was down to 570g and is now up to 720g (though that number seems a little too high).
Everything is going well. She no longer has a heart murmur, the vessel between her heart and lungs that was open causing problems has closed.
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