Don't Know If I Should Be Worried Or Not...

I always have background noise on, namely the TV, when I'm at home. It's not a good thing, I know, but it is what it is.

Today "Say Yes to the Dress" came on. All I've really ever seen of it is what ever I saw till I changed the channel to something I liked better. Today I came in, plopped down to nurse again and changed the channel. Gabriel looked over and said, "No Mom! I want to watch that." When I questioned exactly why he wanted to watch a show about picking wedding dresses he had a perfectly logical answer. "So I can know what to buy for Blianca (Bianca) when she...if she...marries me someday."

He's gotten pretty excited to bring the Helzberg Diamond ad, that comes in the mail, to me too. Maybe he can be my shopping buddy someday. I'm thinkin' he'll have a happy wife someday. {;-D

Welcome Home

There's no easing back into life when kids are involved.

This poster took Gabriel ALL DAY to finish. He wouldn't do it because I accidentally called it "homework" rather than just having him "color". He's the First Grade Friend of the Week and the poster is part of that. The 2+ hours of homework every night is getting fatiguing. Tonight I was informed that "homework sucks" and that "everyone at school says sucks". Nice.

While encouraging/prodding/ordering/pleading with Gabriel I discovered this...

This would be Garrett's Pull Up he didn't put away. I know it's gross that I took a picture of it. I have no idea if it was wet or dry because I made him clean the darn thing up. The dogs rip these things to shreds, wet or dry, and I'm not cleaning them up anymore. While scrubbing his hands this happened...

I left a grocery bag on the counter with two bowls of soup in it. I thought it was back far enough...I.WAS. SO.WRONG. Lincoln is like elasta-boy. He stretched that long ol' body of his and pulled the bag down. One of the lids popped off and did this. Grrr!! I let the dang dogs have a treat so I could take care of this...

*Notice she's mad as heck and still the right color.*
Life is Good.

Lynneah has "sun downer's syndrome". I don't know if it's a real thing or not, but the nurses at the NICU said it too. Everyday as the sun starts to set she completely freaks out. She looks like this till it's dark outside. So while I was addressing the above "issues" I was trying to soothe her at the same time. Stephen was on shift...this was one of the nights I missed having him here.

Everyday around sunset the body snatchers take my sweet kids and leave a bunch of crazies in their place. Once the sun is down the body snatchers bring my kids back.
Really, it's the weirdest thing!
Some nights I triumph patiently getting through the mayhem, other nights I'm a yelling crazy lady (probably when the body snatchers take me too). I actually made it through this night with my sanity semi in-tact.

It's good to be home.

SHE'S HOME...

Again!

We're confident for good this time.

After our really bad afternoon, and a delivery of ice cream from Aunt Sassy, she was able to sleep it off and figure out how to eat again. She still wasn't a fan of night time so I ended up in the the recliner holding her for most of the night. She was eating, which caused weight gain, which led to going home...sleeping in a recliner...totally doable.

My nights in the recliner led to some interesting observations, the main one being that night nurses get pretty punchy around 6:30 am. They start joking and giggle/laughing like crazy about half an hour before shift change. I think I'd do the same thing if I'd been awake all night dealing with very time involved babies too. Lynneah shared a room with 2 25 week preemies and a 27 weeker. She looked like a moose even though she's still 1/2 a pound below her birth weight. Those teeny tiny babies kept the nurses REALLY busy, Lynneah's fussiness just added to the commotion of the room, thus the reason I sat there and took care of all her non-medical needs for a week.

I'll be getting a full detailed post up as soon as I can, mainly because we don't want to forget the last week. The NICU is truly a place where miracles happen; we will forever be grateful that we are the recipients of one of those miracles.

Three Weeks Old

Lynneah is three weeks old today...and here we sit...in the hospital. Last night I ran home quickly to grab some stuff I needed. It was exactly one week since I'd made the same trip with no baby in the back. I cried my eyes out all the way home a week ago. I probably shouldn't have been driving. What a different trip it was last night, still no baby in the back, but I had confidence that once again there will be.

She had a ROUGH night last night. This girl just hates nights she fusses and cries and runs the nurse ragged all night. She finished it off this morning by refusing to latch and nurse before I had to run to work for a short time. I got back down to the hospital and had to drive around for 30 stinkin' minutes to find a place to park. I walked back in her room just in time to find her finishing a bottle. I'm not anti-bottle but had wanted to get back in time to nurse.

Fast Forward to this evening. She FREAKED out! The sun started to set and she went INSANE! She screamed her little head off for 2 hours. She shares a room with several SUPER preemie babies that need quiet. She refused to latch and eat. Her heart rate went above 200 and her oxygen dipped. She just screamed at me for 2 hours. The nurse practitioner said it might be colic. I firmly believe I've done more than enough colic for a lifetime with Gabriel. The nurse asked if we should give her a bottle. I agreed because she needed to eat and because it might quiet her down. She latched right on and ate it down. I lost it. :'-( I sat here bawling like a baby because my baby is RUINED and will only take bottles now. She, of all the kids, is the one that needs to nurse the most and now I'm gonna have to pump to build her darn immune system. She was such a dainty nurser, it makes pumping that much more dreaded. The nurses were very sweet about my total collapse. One assured me that she's never seen a baby that wouldn't nurse again. Oh, how I hope she's right. As an added bonus she freaked out before I got my time sheet sent in. {:-/

The doctor had said if she continued to eat and had gained weight when they weighed her tonight we could go home tomorrow. Yeah, I don't think tonight counted as continued to eat. I just want to go home...with the baby in the back seat. I miss Stephen...and those wild boys that are running poor Nanny ragged.

She's crying again...here's to another night. I think I need cold stone.

Lynneah's Surgery

The NICU has computer access so I thought I'd update quickly but this will be VERY short. Sorry I'm beyond exhausted.

Her surgery went well. The entire colon, small intestine, appendix and possibly spleen were in her chest. The doctor was able to get it all down to the right region of her abdomen. He wasn't ever able to see the spleen so we don't know where that is. He said that it's all down but will be in different positions compared to a person that developed normally. Before we leave we'll get an ultrasound so we know where everything is for future reference. Things like appendicitis (too tired to worry about spelling that right) may not present pain in the lower right region because the appendix might have landed somewhere else. Her heart will probably stay slightly to the right but is developed normally and healthy. Her lung was little but very pink and healthy looking. The doctor said it had begun inflating well and he expects it will continue to inflate and fill the now empty half of her chest. This was an "ideal" case for this problem. These kids are normally very very sick right from the get go, she actually was home for a while. She's a strong fiesty girl and it's served her well so far. The nurses will attest to the fiestiness. :-)

Her vitals are looking good. She's having trouble regulating her temp but the heater in the bassinet is helping with that. She remains on oxygen. They were able to lower it quite a bit and thought maybe she could be off of it, but they can only go down so far before she starts having her oxygen levels drop. The biggest thing we're waiting for is POOP. I never thought I'd be anxious for a poopy diaper, but here I am hoping for it. As soon as she poops I can start her back on nursing again. I hope she remembers how and is willing. We'll just have to wait and see.

At this point all is well. She still has a long, and fairly painful recovery, but she's doing well.

Thank you for all the prayers. We've been blessed by them and felt the love extended from family and friends.

The surgeon gave us very clear pictures I will post those later with more details.

The Knowns & The Unknowns

Here's what we know so far...

*This occurs in 1 out of every 5,000 births.
*There is a huge spectrum of severity...she's on the better end. The bad end results in horribly sick babies that have trouble immediately after birth or pass away quickly after birth.
*She DID come home for a short time and that's a good thing.
*We caught it early, before it became an emergency.
*There is a hole in her diaphragm.
*Major organs vital to life are in the wrong place.
*The surgery will happen early tomorrow morning when the surgeon has his regular team and they are all fresh. I appreciated him taking that into consideration. He said he can take pictures inside for us too.
*She is STARVING, but can't eat. The IV is just not how she wants nourishment.
*Leaving her at the hospital is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. You're not supposed to have them home then have to take them back and leave them.
*She's being very well cared for.
*Stephen is in the middle of his 6 days off and can stay while I get things squared away for when he's back on.
*She is darker complected than Lincoln and me, but NOT as dark as I thought she was. Her dark coloring was from the lack of oxygen in her little body. After they put her on oxygen last night she looked like a different baby. I've never seen her that pink.
*She is not another self pay baby. That would have put us under.

Here's what we don't know...

*How big the hole is. The size of the hole determines the surgeon's course of action AFTER he gets in.
*The state of her lung. The fact that she was alright after birth has the surgeon thinking that it should be pretty good.
*How well the vascular structure of the lung was able to develop. She won't be able to make any more of the little air sacs, but the ones that are there should be able to expand and fill the whole chest cavity with time.
*The health of her heart. They did an ultrasound this morning and will have the cardiologist read it sometime this afternoon. It was weird to look down and see the ultrasound wand on the wrong side of her chest. The Drs think it should be fine.
*How long her recovery in the hospital after the surgery will be. It is totally dependent on her little bowel. There is so much up in her chest it's going to freak out being moved.
*Several of our questions were answered with that will depend on what we find when we get in.
*How the boys will react. We were just getting them back from the body snatchers that took them and re-establishing their routines. Just the slightest hint of the insanity was starting to fade.

Don't Even Know What to Title This...

Something hasn't been right with our little Lynneah. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what, but my gut told me something was wrong. I struggled with how to even describe what was going on. She kept turning plum purple when she would cry, then she would kind of grunt while she was calming down, then she would have huge amounts of bubbles come out of her mouth as she relaxed again. It was a bunch of weird stuff that I couldn't connect to each other. Then I noticed her little belly button stump was bleeding. That was the defining weird thing that made me call the Pediatrician. We got in the same day. Belly Button was fine. He agreed that these were a bunch of odd symptoms and suggested we treat for acid reflux and see if there was any improvement. She was doing pretty well then had another episode. I was just getting her calmed down when the Pediatrician's nurse called to see how she was doing today. I had taken note of the progression of the episode this time and explained what had just happened. The Dr called back a while later and said we should go ahead and take her to the pediatric ER for an upper G.I. tract scan. When we arrived her oxygen levels were in the low to mid 80's (rather than the 98-100% she should be at) which led to an x-ray and lots of activity in the ER. The x-ray came back and showed a hernia in her diaphragm. The entire left side of her chest cavity is filled with intestine pushing her heart and lungs to the right side of her chest. Yeah, while the Drs were talking about what they saw I caught that her little heart is on the WRONG side. She is now in the NICU till she can get into surgery tomorrow or Thursday. I thought she might have to stay for a couple of days after the surgery then the nurse said that no we were looking at weeks in the NICU after surgery. I kept myself together till the drive home...weeks...weeks...not good. Tomorrow she'll be two weeks old. I hate that she's there and not here. Stephen stayed tonight with her because every time I held her she wanted to nurse and she's not allowed to do that till after surgery. It's killing me. I'm so glad my pump got here. That's what I'll be doing for the next several weeks. She's such a dainty little nurser pumping is really not fun, but I want her getting that when she can eat again. I'm glad we have insurance again. I have to sleep now so I can get back to the hospital for the meeting with the surgeons early in the morning. Big breath...pray for her...and her momma that's a big mess.

She had a very long day! It took two tries for the IV, then they had to draw blood, then they put a tube down her throat all the way to her stomach, she can't nurse, and finally went to sleep from the exhaustion of it all. Oh, my sweet girl hang in there you'll feel better soon.