October 16, 2008
Isabelle Rose Lytwyn was born at 12:41 p.m. at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is 1lb 13 oz and beautiful. She was born at 25 weeks gestational age.
 October 22, 2008
We have received a lot of positive information today on Isabelle. As of 5:10 p.m. her chest x-ray has come back clear, and they may take her off of the ventilator by tomorrow afternoon. She began feeding 1 cc of milk last night at 8, and her body is absorbing all of it as it should. They have since decided to up the frequency of her dose from every 4 hours to every 3 hours. She took her first POOP this morning before we arrived at the hospital. Lastly, the biggest news of the day is that the brain sonogram came back today showing a very very mild grade 1 bleed, which they say will have no long lasting effects whatsoever, so we are all very excited.
October 23, 2008 Isabelle had her ventilator increased a little bit today due to the fact that her blood gas was a little low. They had told us that this is normal for her small size since her lungs still lack the stamina to breath throughout the day on her own. She had her third blood transfusion today. They said this is completely normal for a premie. Her bone marrow is not fully developed yet and they are taking blood from her to test several times a day. She is not able to replace the blood fast enough yet. They increased her feeding again to 2 cc of milk every 3 hours because her body is still absorbing every drop. She is most definitely my daughter! (This is Will by the way) They are scheduling another heart exam tomorrow to see if the PDA valve is closing. This is a valve in the heart that typically closes at birth. Occasionally, they are hearing a slight murmur which indicates it is still not fully closed. All of the doctors and nurses have indicated that this is fairly common even in full term babies. That is all for today and I will hopefully update the page tomorrow. October 24, 2008 Isabelle is doing well on her oxygen today. She has pretty much been sitting at 21-24%. 21% is room air. They have upped her feeding to 3 cc every 3 hours and she is again keeping it all down. They ran another ECO on her heart today, and the valve is still open. They are trying another medication to see if it will close on her own. If it does not, she will have to have surgery through her armpit area to ensure that it stays closed. This procedure is supposedly a very simple one, and they are not expecting any setbacks. She had 2 POOPs today, one of which we were there for and it was quite a bit. They lowered her ventilator settings to 35 times per minute from 40. She was keeping a pace of about 37 breaths per minute which means she is pretty much breathing on her own. Hopefully I will have new positive information tomorrow on her PDA. October 25, 2008
Isabelle may go off of her ventilator today. Depending on how her blood gases come back and how she responds to another lower setting, they may take the tube out and insert a nasal oxygen feeder. She is having a pick line added today. A pick line is a tube that will be inserted into her veins and allow antibiotics/medicines to be circulated throughout her body. It is much better for her than IV lines since it will not have to be redone every few days. Apparently once it is in, they shouldnt have to adjust it any more. They are still hearing the murmur, but hopefully the medication will work and close the PDA. She has been up quite a bit today and was looking at us as we spoke to her. As a final note, she has already had 2 more POOPS as of 3:05 p.m., and they say that this is a very good sign that her digestive system is working properly.
October 27, 2008
Isabelle Rose Lytwyn now weighs 1 lb 14 oz. They have begun her feedings again at 2 cc of milk every 3 hours. This morning her blood gas was perfect, so they gave her a caffeine shot to prepare her body for coming off of the ventilator tomorrow. They are also going to perform another chest x-ray in the morning to check on the progress of her lungs. Her skin is much less wrinkley than it has been and she looks more plump than ever. Also, as of this morning, the nurses cannot hear her heart murmur. We will all cross our fingers for the next ECO to determine if her PDA has closed.
October 28, 2008 In the new video that was added today, pay special attention to the middle clip. The silver object on her arm is Will's wedding band!! Isabelle Rose Lytwyn now weighs 2 lb 1 oz!!! She did come off of the ventilator for a little while last night. It was much earlier than anticipated, because at around 10:30 last night she ripped her vent tube and tape from her face. This was something we were told she wouldn't be able to do for weeks. She only made it about 45 minutes breathing on her own before they had to re-insert a new vent tube. Doctors have told us that this is typical to go back and forth, and they have informed us that we will try to take her off of the vent again next week. Her murmur has become louder again. They have scheduled another ECO to determine if the hole has become larger again. She is still eating 2cc of milk every 3 hours, and tonight they are going to up her to 3cc. I hope you all enjoy the video!  October 29, 2008 Today was a pretty calm and non eventful day, which is good! She slept the entire 6 hours we were with her. They increased her feeding to 4cc every 3 hours and then to 5cc every 3 hours. As long as she is digesting all the milk, they will increase her feedings by 1cc at 5am and 5pm every day. Our goal is to reach 14cc. She received another head ultrasound today to make sure the grade 1 bleed did not increase, which it did not. It showed the same as last week. The doctors say that if it was going to progress it would have by now. This is a major obstacle she has overcome. October 31, 2008 Isabelle has grown over an inch since she was born. She is now 12 3/4 inches long. As of yesterday she was two weeks old already! She is up to 9cc every 3 hours! She has had several poops in the last couple days. This includes the one she had while Lana was in the middle of changing her diaper today! They gave her a pacifier and she loves to suck on it when she gets hungry. Although they are still feeding her through the tube up her nose she is associating the sucking with a full belly. This will help her when she starts to bottle and breast feed. They are giving her a shot of Vitamin A three times a week for 12 doses to help her lungs develop. The ECO on her heart was done yesterday and although they can hear the murmur again it is still so small that is it does not need to be treated. This is very good news because we were thinking it was opened up to a good size again where they were going to have to treat it with medication or surgery. November 3, 2008 Today was Will's first full day back to work since the birth of Isabelle. I was at the hospital alone most of the day until Will got off work. She was stable and slept most of the day. The last couple of days her oxygen levels were all over the place, either high or low. Today seemed much better and much more stable, but they said not to expect her to come off the ventilator for a few more weeks. Her chest x rays are very hazy again. This means her lungs have collected more fluid. They improved last week and are now worse again. They put her on a medication to get rid of the extra fluid in her body. She will be on this until her lungs clear up. The doctors think her murmur opened bigger again. They scheduled an ECO on her heart for sometime this week to see if that is the case. If it is the case, it would explain her high and low levels of oxygen saturation. Isabelle is now eating 14mL of breast milk every three hours and is taking it all! They stopped her TPN IV (which was the calorie fluid) since she is getting enough calories from the milk. For her weight and size they are leveling off at 14mL. They will up her feedings when she stops gaining weight and needs more. Though they feed her via a tube down her nose, they are putting a drop of milk on her tongue before they feed her to get used to the taste. The first time I saw them do this Isabelle went crazy licking her lips and sucking! It was so cute. She is very comforted by our touch. If she is fussy I can just put my hands over top of her and she seems to relax while her oxygen saturation improves. The nurses say that she knows my smell and my touch and this comforts her. :o) November 8, 2008 We found out that Isabelle has an infection on Thursday when her weekly blood culture came back and her white blood cell count was high, signaling she was fighting something off. They could not identify what the infection was from until this morning. They put her on antibiotics Thursday after her results. She tested positive for Group B Strep this morning. They changed her antibiotics then did a spinal tap to make sure it was not meningitis. We were disappointed when the results came back positive for meningitis this afternoon. They caught her infection extremely early. She was not showing any symptoms of being sick yet. As of right now she is still eating her 14mL of milk with a 24 calorie fortifier to help her gain weight. Sometimes babies cannot tolerate their food when they have meningitis, but right now she is still digesting it all. We are crossing our fingers that the doctors caught this early enough that she will not show any symptoms of being sick. If she is not able to eat they will put her back on the TPN (the calorie IV). She will be on her antibiotic for 14 days. They say that this is treatable and we just have to wait it out. We appreciate all the support we've received from our family and friends! Please keep our daughter in your prayers! November 11, 2008 The culture from her spinal tap still has not grown in 48 hours. If the bacteria would have grown, it would mean the infection was more serious. The doctors caught it extremely early and got the antibiotic in her as soon as possible. This is great news! She is still not showing any symptoms of meningitis and they are not expecting her to have complications from this. She is now up to 15cc of milk with the 24 calorie fortifier and digesting it all. Her lungs are not improving and are kind of at a stand still. I am sure it has to do with her being sick and her body working on getting her well again and not working on her lungs. Dr. K has talked about giving her steroids to help develop and get rid of the inflammation in her lungs. They would give it to her over a span of 3 days. They waited this long to give her the steroids because it will make her weight level off over the 3 days. We want her to keep gaining weight, but we want her lungs to develop also.We are going to wait to do this until we know she is completely over the meningitis. I just called to get an update on her while I was typing and she gained 3oz! She now weights 2 lbs 6 oz! That is so exciting! I thought maybe since she was sick she would not gain a lot of weight. I told Will yesterday that I thought she looked bigger, but that I was probably just getting used to her tiny size. I wasn't crazy after all! November 13, 2008 Happy One Month Birthday Isabelle!!!! Today she is four weeks old :o) The last couple of days Isabelle has been very up and down on her oxygen. It got to the point where they switched her to a different kind of ventilator to see if she responded well to it. I talked to the doctor and questioned whether her PDA in her heart had opened back up again. It would make sense because her lungs are still not improving and if her lungs are getting too much blood from the PDA being open then it would make her oxygen levels all over the place. I asked if she could get another ECO on her heart done to see if the valve reopened. The doctor agreed with me and got an ECO just a little bit ago. My suspicians were right and her PDA did open back up to a moderate size. This explains why she has been this way for the last couple of days. They are trying the medication for the third time starting tonight. This means she will not be able to eat for the next 36 hours. They will temporarily put her on the TPN fluid while she is not eating. I really hope the medication works this time. If it does not she will need to have the surgery. Either way, we need to get this fixed as soon as possible. This seems to be the one thing that has been holding her back in the last month and the reason why she is not able to get off the ventilator. I think as soon as this gets resolved, she will start progressing steadily. She has gained another ounce and is now 2 lbs 7 oz and 13 1/2 inches long. She is also a little farter! Yesterday I was in the incubator cradling her with my hand and felt a vibration. I thought maybe she farted, so I put my hand on her butt when she farted so loud Will heard it from a few feet back. It was so cute and high pitched. Who knew we would get so excited about a fart? Haha. November 15, 2008 As of this morning, they cannot hear her PDA! This is very good news and I pray that it stays closed this time! She also gained some weight and is now 2 1/2 lbs :o) Her PDA medication is done and they started to feed her again this morning. Since she has been on the TPN fluid these last couple of days, she is retaining alot of fluid. Her hands, feet, and eyes are really puffy. It is not a big deal and they are giving her medication to get rid of the extra fluid. Her chest xray looks clearer, but still blurry. They are still not where they want them to be. Since on the new ventilator her blood gases and CO2 counts have been much better and as those numbers continue to improve they will keep lowering her settings. Tomorrow Isabelle will be 30 weeks gestationally!
November 19, 2008
Isabelle is having a rough couple of days but she is slowly getting better. Will and I got a call Monday morning at 6am because Isabelle was requiring 100% oxygen and was desaturating. Once she is at 100% they really cannot do anything else to help her. They told us that we did not need to come in and if she got worse they would call us. Will decided to not go into work and we headed up to the hospital. When she desaturates it is kind of similar to us holding our breath. If we hold it long enough we turn blue. If she desaturated for a couple minutes she would do the same thing, turn a blue ashy color. I think she may have given me an ulcer that day, lol. Yesterday she was a little better at 80%. So when she desaturated they were able to turn her up to 100% to help her out. Last night she actually got down to 40% and she is now at 60%. The reason for all of this chaos is because they realized she has an infection in her heart. It has been kept under control from all the antibiotics she has been on from her other infections and it is now starting to affect her. They expect her to get through this fine. She will have to be on antibiotics for another 6 weeks because an infection in the heart is very serious. Right now is supposed to be the worst of it and she should start to get better and back to herself within a week or two. They have her on Ativan to keep her calm because when she gets angry she desaturates. The were also giving her Morphine to make sure she wasn't in any kind of pain, but she has not needed it since last night. She is not feeding right now but she is up to 2 lbs 14 1/2 oz! She is starting to look very big and she is not swollen like she was a few days ago. I believe this is fatty weight. Her meningitis is gone and she has no side effects from it. Her lungs are clear now and her PDA is closed. This is wonderful news. We just need her to keep fighting and get rid of this infection!
November 21, 2008 After writing my last post Isabelle continued to get worse. Her saturation is supposed to be above 75 and at one point that night when they were getting an x ray she went down to 18. All the doctors and nurses were working on her and got her saturation back up within a couple minutes. The x ray showed that her right lung was collapsed. They positioned her on her left side which forced her right lung to work. A couple hours later another x ray showed her lung was working again. They also started her on steroids to help her lungs develop faster. Will and I stayed that night at the hospital. The NICU actually has an overnight room for special circumstances. We were up every couple hours checking on her and she seemed to continue to get better throughout the night. Her oxygen was actually at 24% when we left the hospital the next morning. We came home, napped, showered, then headed back up there for a couple hours. All seemed good, so we headed home, ate dinner, then I went to bed at about 8:30pm because I was just beat. I told Will to get an update on her before he comes to bed and to wake me up to let me know how she is doing. Will came in at about 11:30pm telling me we need to head back up to the hospital and that she wasn't doing too good. We were out the door in five minutes. What happened was soon after my call for an update at 8:30pm Isabelle went up to 100% and continued to desaturate. The doctor realized she was having Brochio Spasms because her chest was tight and not opening up to breathe. We knew she was having these before, but not as bad last night. She was basically having ashma attacks. They kept having to bag her (which means they manually pump air to her lungs) during this couple hour period to bring her saturation back up. Dr decided to put her back on the old ventilator so they can give her the ashma treatments. They can only give the treatments through the old ventilator. Will and I have been asking for days about putting her back on the old one because the new one did not allow her to breathe on her own and she kept trying to breathe over it. In turn, this has her pushing back on her breathing tube not allowing the air to get in. She was fighting so much they had to give her a medication to paralyze her so she would not fight the ventilator. When Will and I got up to the hospital we were extremely scared. She was at 98%. We left her room to talk to the doctor and when we came back she was already down to 75%. She was doing better and the ashma medication was opening up her lungs and allowing her to breathe. Ever since she went on the second ventilator she had just continuously gotten worse. We stayed the night again and early this morning she was down to 32% and her vent settings were not very high. She seems to be doing much better now. They let the paralysis medication wear off and she has been pretty steady at 50% all day. She is not fighting the ventilator very much right now, which is very good. Hopefully this is what was going on the whole time with the second ventilator and she can now get better. This truly explains everything that was going on. It did not make sense that she was at 24% and two minutes later she is desaturating and bringing her then up to 100% would not help. It only makes sense that the reason it wasn't working was because her lungs were tightened and no matter how high they went on her oxygen it wouldn't work. Will and I just napped and are going to head back up to the hospital. I pray we do not have another episode tonight, that we found what the problem was, and she only continues to get better from here. Yesterday she was 5 weeks old! Oh, and I am pretty sure I now have an ulcer, maybe a couple actually. I told the nurses that once she gets better that she is going to be in big trouble and as punishment I was going to use a cold wipie instead of a warm one! Lol. November 28, 2008 Sorry it has been a week since we have posted. I am sure you are all glad to hear that Isabelle is doing wonderful! After our last entry she kept decreasing in her oxygen and was down to 21-24%. A few day ago they were talking about maybe taking her off the ventilator in a week or so. That day she decided to tear her breathing tube out herself... again. They decided to give her a chance off the ventilator and on the NPV (nasal prong ventilation). They are tiny tubes that go up her nose and sit at the back of her throat. She is breathing on her own, but the pressure of the oxygen gives her the full volume she needs. She has been on them for 4 days now and doing fabulous! We got to give her a bath for the first time and they took all of her monitors and nasal prongs off. She was breathing on her own and doing fine! She frequently pulls her prongs out because she hates them. Most of the time the nurses don't even know they are out because she does fine without them. When they feel she is ready to switch to the regular oxygen (the tiny prongs that just sit at the tip of your nose), they will try it. It could be tomorrow or it could be two weeks. Isabelle's primary nurse seems to think it will be on Sunday, so we will see! She is back to feeding and up to 14cc right now. They are increasing her feedings 1cc twice a day until she reaches 22cc. She still weighs around 2 lbs 14oz because a lot of the weight she gained was water weight. She has lost the water weight and is now gaining good fatty weight. She is also 15 inches long. She had her first eye exam yesterday and all was well. Many babies have to have laser eye surgery before they go home because sometimes premies blood vessels in their eyes don't form exactly right. They will continue to check them until she is discharged. Yesterday she was 6 weeks old already and Sunday she will be 32 weeks. We are able to take her out and hold her everyday and she just loves it! She gets very angry when we have to put her back in. She is regulating her temperature very well and they are continuing to lower her incubator temp setting. She has really turned the corner and improving by leaps and bounds. This morning we went out to babies r us to get her furniture because the nurses are saying if Isabelle continues to improve and has no more major set backs, she could be home by New Years! We better start getting ready because we have nothing! Haha. For Black Friday they also had 132ct of diapers for $10! We got 6 boxes of size 1 because we were told she will be in that size for a long time. So if anyone is planning on getting us diapers, please get any size other than 1, I think we have plenty! We are planning on having a baby shower here in Pittsburgh in a couple weeks. We do not expect everyone to come, but you are all welcome. We will let you know once everything is finalized. Thank you for all your prayers! They are being answered! November 30, 2008 Isabelle is still doing great! They lowered her NPV settings and are weaning her off of it slowly since she was on the ventilator for such a long time. I am thinking she will come off of it sometime this coming week. She is up to 18cc of milk now and digesting it fine. She also hit 3 lbs!!!! YAY! We are very excited! Will and I already started putting her room together. We put up her crib and changing table/dresser. We got her bedding and rocker last night. Her room is so cute and it is so much fun getting it ready for her! We finally rescheduled the Columbus baby shower for Saturday December 13 at 1pm here in Pittsburgh. Family and friends are welcome to come, but we do not expect a lot of people to make the 4 hour trip. We know that is a far drive. If you plan on coming out to the shower, please e-mail me asap to let me know at lana.lytwyn@yahoo.com so I can give everyone directions and the name of hotels by my house. Again, everyone is welcome to come and we would love to see all of you, but we understand if you are unable to make it. :o) December 2, 2008 Belle is still doing great! She is off the NPV and downgraded to the CPAP. Which are short prongs that are still hooked up to the ventilator to give her the volume she needs. They are taking her off of it twice a day for two hours and putting her on plain oxygen and she is doing great with that! They are taking her blood gases when she is off and they are great! If she continues to tolerate everything, she will probably be off the CPAP and just on the oxygen by this weekend! She is now up to 22cc and that is where they are going to hold her feedings until she stops gaining weight and requires more. She is now 3 lbs 2 1/2 oz! Right now the doctors concern is her gaining weight. They said she should start gaining pretty fast and she seems to be gaining about an ounce a day. They might fortify my milk to give her some extra calories to help pack on the pounds. Since coming off of the ventilator she has had a few bradys, which is when her heart rate drops below 80 for more than a couple seconds. We were told to expect this when they took her off because of how young she is, her brain conncetions have to get used to the fact that she has to breathe on her own and to keep her heart rate up. When she has one Will and I or the nurses come over and flick her foot, startle her a little bit to get her heart rate up. As she gets bigger and older they should subside. And when she is ready to come home she cannot have a brady for seven days. If she has one the day before she comes home, she will have to stay another seven days! But we will deal with that when she is closer to coming home. Overall, Isabelle is doing fantastic! December 7, 2008 Isabelle is off of CPAP as of today and just on the oxygen!!!! WooHoo! Unless she is not ready and cannot handle just the oxygen, she will not be going back on the CPAP. The next 24 hours will tell us how she will handle it. Before they took her off completely she was 16 hours off the CPAP and 8 hours on. We all expect her to do fine just on the oxygen because she is much much happier off the CPAP. She is now eating 26cc with a fortifier and a fatty oil to help her gain weight. She is up to 3 1/2 lbs as of last night. If she's stable off the CPAP we are going to start bottle/breast feeding her next weekend! This is going to be a HUGE step for her! She needs to learn how to suck, swallow, and breathe all at the same time. She has the sucking and breathing down due to her sucking on her pacifier all the time, now we just have to throw in the swallowing. Overall, she is still progressing everyday and continues to impress us all! :o) December 16, 2008 Sorry I have not updated in a while. As of last night, Isabelle hit 4 lbs! After the doctors took her off the CPAP she lasted around 40 hours and then started to show signs that she still needed to be on it. They kept her on it for only 8 hours at night time and took her off during the day. Yesterday they decided to try to take her off completely again and so far so good. Yesterday we introduced breastfeeding to her. She actually did so well we had to stop her. While we were trying to breastfeed, we were tube feeding her at the same time. The nurses did not expect her to actually get any milk out the first try, but surprisingly she did! We did not want her to get too much and over feed. We are going to keep doing this once a day until she builds up her stamina. They are not going to introduce a bottle quite yet because the milk comes out very quickly out of a bottle and since she is just learning how to eat, we do not want to overwhelm her. This is why babies do better with breastfeeding verses bottle feeding. Isabelle has also had weekly eye exams and so far everything looks fine. She only has 2 weeks left of the 6 weeks of her antibiotic for her heart infection. They did an ECO last week and the infection was gone, but they are still treating her for the full 6 weeks! This is wonderful news!!! Other than that, the baby shower went wonderfully! Thank you everyone who came or sent gifts with my parents! We are in the process of organizing her room and washing all of her clothes! Oh, also, Isabelle is now wearing her little preemie clothes! She looks so cute in them! I didn't think she would like to wear them since she's been naked for the last 8 weeks, but she seems to love them! I think it makes her feel bundled, which she loves. She will not be in them for long though. Preemie clothes are only up to 5 lbs and since she is already 4 lbs, she will probably be coming home in newborn clothes! We are hoping she comes home the week after new years! We will keep you updated on that too! Also, she has brown eyes and what looks like wavy blonde/red hair! The brown eyes are from the Cassady side and the blonde/red hair is from the Barna side! I love it! :o) December 30, 2008 I am sure everyone is annoyed that we have not updated in a few weeks! We are very sorry. Isabelle is now 4 lbs 12 oz and eating 38cc, which is over 1 oz. She was taken out of her incubator and into a big girl bed the day after Christmas and has been regulating her temperature well! She was done with her antibiotics yesterday and she's stayed off the CPAP and only on the cannula (regular oxygen) since the 15th. She is doing great with that. She's been bottle/breastfeeding 3 to 4 out of her 8 feedings a day. She does GREAT breastfeeding, but she has a harder time bottle feeding. She eats too fast and chokes on it. Some bottles she does fine until the end, but some she does not do good from the beginning. I am sure this is going to take a few more weeks to perfect. Isabelle's eye exam last night did not go so well. They had the eye surgeon come in to see if she was at the point of surgery. We just got the call that one eye will need surgery. It will be laser surgery. It will damage some of her periphrial vision, but she needs to have the surgery. They will have to put her back on the ventilator and they give her a paralysis medication during the surgery. Hopefully, she will not need to be on the ventilator for very long after the surgery is over. She also will not be able to eat, but I am not sure how long. I hope not very long. Her surgery is at 2pm tomorrow. Please pray for it to go smoothly and that she will recover quickly. We are also hoping her other eye will not need the surgery. It is showing a stage 2, which is other eye is a stage 3. We are hoping it does not progress to stage 3 and have to go through this twice. I will try to update the website in the next day to two to let everyone know how the surgery and recovery went. Besides the eye complication, Isabelle is doing great! We hope to move past this minor setback quickly! January 3, 2009 Isabelle's eye surgery went great! It took about 35 minutes. I was in the OR with her until they had to intubate (putting in the breathing tube) her and sedate her. We were told she would not come off the ventilator for about 8-24 hours. As soon as she started to wake up, which was about 30 min after the surgery, she was crying, pulling at her breathing tube, and breathing way over the ventilator. The doctors and nurses were very surprised and tried to take her off. She was fine! Although she did have 5 or 6 apneas within the next 2 hours, but that was because the sedative was still wearing off. She has been fine ever since. Her left eye looks like she's been punched, but hopefully it starts to feel better soon! The doctors keep talking to us about The Children's Home which is a step down facility for NICU patients. Will and I kept shrugging it off because we love the NICU and are comfortable there. One of the doctors pushed for us to just go take a tour to see how we like it. We went yesterday and we LOVE it! It is brand new, built in 2007. A lot of the nurses that work at the NICU work or have worked there. All the nurses there are NICU nurses and we have the same doctors. It is right around the corner from the hospital. The environment is more home like. When I am not there she will be in the nursery with the other babies. It is MUCH quieter in there than the NICU. I can stay the night. They have four bedrooms that open up to a family room and full kitchen. They have two of these, so they have 8 bedrooms all together. When I stay, I will be Isabelle's primary caretaker. She will sleep in my room, I will feed her, give her her medications, change her diaper, wake up with her in the middle of the night, everything... if I need a nurse, all I have to do is push the emergency button on the wall and they will be right there. I will learn how to operate the monitors and oxygen machines in case Isabelle will have to come home on those, which is very likely she will. She will probably be there for about 2 weeks. That will give me a good time to get familiar with what I am going to face when I come home with the monitors and giving her her medication. Oh, she is now 5 lbs!!!! Woohoo! Her preemie clothes hardly fit her now. She is starting to get really heavy! I will update everyone on when we will be transferred. I hope everyone had a great New Years! January 11, 2009 Isabelle is doing fantastic! We had a post surgery eye exam and so far everything looks good and no touch up surgery is required at this time. Dr. Hoffman will check her eyes once a week until she comes home to make sure everything is progressing well. She is up to 5 lbs 9oz and eating 2 oz every 4 hours. She is officially out of her preemie clothes and into newborn! She has been taking most of her feedings by mouth. Until she is taking them all by mouth consistently, she can not come home. Tuesday we are being transferred to a transition home where I can stay the night with her and do most of her care. They will teach me how to give her her medication and work her monitors and oxygen that she will be on when she gets home. We are estimating that she will be there for about a week. The only thing we are waiting on is for her to eat all of her feedings by mouth. She has come a long way with her eating in the last week and a half! The next time I will update the site is when we find out what day she will be coming home. We will probably have a good feel of that by next weekend. Also, when she does come home, Will is taking a week off work. We are just going to have some alone time with the three of us until he has to return back to work. After, our immediate families are welcome to come visit. We will let everyone know when we are going to be up for more visitors. We know everyone wants to come out to meet her, but right now is cold and flu season. The more we expose Isabelle, the more likely she could catch something. For her, catching the cold or flu could send her back to the hospital. We are going to be germaphobics for the next couple of months, not like we haven't been already! LoL. :o) January 31, 2009 Isabelle is FINALLY HOME!!!!! She was discharged Thursday, Jan 29 at 1pm! She has been a very good baby! The first night she squirmed and wiggled a lot, she did not seem comfortable. We still got about 6 to 7 hours of sleep. We realized she doesn't really like to be anywhere besides her bouncer, swing, or being held. We slept out in the living room last night while she slept in her swing and she slept for about 5 hours at a time, Will and I got great sleep! The in home nurse came this morning to check on her and to get her weight and she is doing great! She now weighs 7 lbs 2 oz, about what she would have been full term. On Thursday we woke up to our laptop dead... go figure! That is why we have not been able to give updates for the last couple of days. The doggies love Isabelle. Annie doesn't really seem to care and Lucky is obsessed with her. He checks up on Isabelle every time she makes any sound. It's quite cute! He loves her. We will keep everyone updated on Isabelle and how she is doing!!! :o) |
