Ups, Downs, & All Arounds......

That has been our ongoing NICU journey. All of the nurses and the Doc told us that being in the NICU is like the 2-Step, 2 steps forward & 1 step back or vise versa. The girls have been keeping me on my toes that is for sure!! They all have gone through several rounds of infections/blood & plasma transfusions/going on & off of antibiotics. So, here are the individual updates:

Addisyn: Lil Miss Addy had been doing good, she was up to about 22 cc every 3 hours on her feedings with me getting to breast feed her once a day. She was still on her oxygen and was requiring a little more than her sisters. We also found out she has a ventral septal defect in her heart, but fortunatley, as explained by the doctor, her defect is a muscular defect, so it will correct itself & grow together as she gets bigger, where as if it was a membranous defect then she would have had to have heart surgery, but fortunatley we do not have to have surgery. But, last Monday morning about 2 am I got a phone call from her nurse telling me she had been put back on the ventilator because she started having bradycardic (heart rate dropping low) & apnic (quit breathing) episodes & not recovering from them so therefore she was placed back on the vent. I guess she had to have attention just like her sister Braylea (more on her in a few). Anyways, after extensive blood work up etc., she had gotten yet another infection (pneumonia) & a blood infection and her little body was just worn out from trying to fight it off. Yesterday she was extubated and is now back on CPAP oxygen therapy & has been doing good so far. She has been a wild child ever since she got off the vent, she gets mad & starts pulling off all of her stuff & setting her alarms off, her daddy says she got my temper! She got to start her feedings back today @ 5 cc every 3 hours so hopefully that will help her calm down. I just think she is hungry because she sucks on her pasi like crazy and tries to "root" on to everything. Today she weighed 4#1 oz.

Addisyn yesterday after she got off of the ventilator before they put her oxygen on her.

One of the few times that she was content & asleep today!!

Braylea: Lil' Miss Braylea had been doing about the same as Addisyn. She was up to about 24cc every 3 hours on her feedings with me also getting to breast feed her once a day to. She had got completely off of her oxygen last Saturday and was doing good on room air then about 11 Sunday morning I got a phone call from the Doctor telling me he as about to put her back on the ventilator because she had been having bradycardic & apnic episodes all nite and was just wearing herself out. So after extensive work up etc., she also had pneumonia & a blood infection. They had also connected her to an EEG machine because the nurses thought she was posturing during the nite like she was having seizures, and the doc just wanted to make sure that she wasn't. Fortunatley, that came back negative, she didn't have a seizure one. Braylea stayed on the vent for less than 24 hours, she was extubated Monday morning and put back on CPAP oxygen therapy. This morning she was taken off of that and has been on room air and has been doing good holding her own. She also got her feedings started again and she is at 16 cc every 3 hours right now. So after blood/plasma tranfusions and aggressive antibiotic therapy Addisyn & Braylea are doing soooo much better despite their setback last week. Today she weighed 4# 3 oz.

Braylea off in "la la" land.

Oh so cute!! :)

Jayci: Lil Miss Jayci has been my less dramatic little one. About a week and half ago she was up to 16cc every 3 hrs. One nite I was feeding her through her gavage tube and she started spitting up and it was coming out through her nose and everything. She had also done that several times early that day too so the nurse called the doc and her feedings were stopped and they put down another tube to her stomach to keep her stomach sucked out. Then the next morning the doc did an abdominal x-ray and he thought she might had been trying to get necrotizing enterocolitis (a stomach infection that premie babies are prone to getting). After several days of repeated x-rays he was able to rule that out & decided that she just had a bunch of air in her tummy. So, he let her tummy rest for about a week then this past Tuesday he tried to start feeding her again at 1 cc every 3 hours but she was not tolerating that (the nurse was getting like 1/2 cc residuals every time she went to feed her) so he stopped her feedings again for a few days because he didn't want to push her and have what happend last time happen again. He said he will try to start feeding her again on Monday. Otherwise, she has been doing good, she has been off her oxygen for almost a week now & has been doing really good. Today she weighed 3# 10 oz today.

Me holding Jayci for the first time yesterday.

All nice & cozy today!

So that is basically it. Hopefully we are on the downslide to coming home (keep your fingers crossed!). We just have to work on holding temps, feeding/eating & growing! I am soo sorry that I have been terrible at keeping up with this, I will try to do better! I can't believe that they are 4 weeks old today! Time has flown by waaaay to fast!!

Until next time,

Take Care!!