Kangaroo Care with Mommy and Daddy

We held our baby! Daddy let me go first. Abigail was crying when they handed her to me and as soon as she put her head on my chest, it was like the whole world just stopped. She fell quietly asleep and for the first time in what seems like an eternity, my world was perfectly complete. Every ounce of pain I was feeling was gone. The heartache and frustrations of the last 6 months vanished. It was the first time Abigail had ever been cuddled and she fell fast asleep in my arms, as though she'd been there a thousand times before.



Here's Daddy holding her too. Fatherhood suits him to a tee. He even changed his first diaper the other night.



Auntie Erin asked me how tiny her diapers are. I brought one home for our scrapbook. Here is it next to my cellphone, just to give you an idea of it's size. Not sure if the picture really does it justice or not, but...you get the idea.



We are heading back over to the hospital soon, but the update we got this morning was all good. Her central line was removed last night and replaced with a pick line. It looks much better and will be better for the long term to keep her fed and healthy. It looks more like an IV and looks much less invasive than that central line that was going into her neck. She is also being wiened off of the cannula. She is down to a half-liter and if she does well today she could be completely done with it. Yay for strong, healthy lungs! We are so proud of her progress. She keeps surprising everyone with her strength and determination. More updates soon...thank you all for your continued prayers.

One week old

We visited Abigail last night and she happened to be out from under the tanning bed for a bit. Yesterday they took her off the ventilator (yay!) and put her back on the nasal cannula. It's the first time I have really had a good look at her face, since she's always had either the ventilator and/or goggles on. Here's a picture of her posing for Daddy.



She also got to meet Uncle Jeff and Auntie Susan last night. Unfortunately it was a quick visit because I wasn't feeling so hot. Before I left though, I was able to change her diaper for the first time. As you can clearly see by the look on her face, she didn't like it one bit!

Happy Birthday Abigail and Madison!

It's a long story, but let's start with the important stuff, shall we? Abigail Renee was born on Sunday August 24th at 7:58am, weighing 2 pounds 4 ounces and she was 14.5 inches long. Her sister Madison Marie was born quietly into Heaven at 7:59am. She weighed 9.4 ounces and was 10.5 inches long. The babies were born via emergency c-section.

Due to a number of complications, Mom was put under general anesthesia for the surgery. Daddy went right upstairs to the NICU with Abigail to get her stabilized. Here's their first picture together. Abigail was about an hour old.



While in recovery, we were able to get a very private and special moment alone with Madison. The nurses gave us a lovely keepsake box with her blanket and hat and a cast of her adorable little footprints. We will have her cremated later this week and she will forever be our family's Guardian Angel.

Abigail did well her first night and by Monday night she had graduated from ventilator to the C-PAP and then the nasal cannula, meaning she was basically breathing completely on her own. Mom fell very ill after surgery and by Monday night required a blood transfusion.

On Tuesday afternoon it was found that Abigail was very sick as well and she had to be transferred to CHOC. We said goodbye and Daddy went with her to her new hospital while I continued to battle my complications.

On Wednesday morning Abigail was diagnosed with NEC (Necrotizing entercolitis). This is a gastrointestinal disease that effects 1-5% of neonatal admissions. The severity of it ranges from treatment with antibiotics to partial removal of the intestines, to so severe that the baby dies. Abigail immediately had surgery to determine the extent of the damage. Luckily they found that only part of the large intestine was affected so they were able to remove that part (which was about 1/2 of the intestine). She came out of surgery and is recovering nicely. For the next 10 weeks she will have a colostomy (a bag on the outside of her tummy) that will catch her bowel movements. In 10 weeks the intestines should be healed enough that they can reconnect them and close her up. In the meantime, she is recovering from the surgery and should start feeding in another week or so. I don't yet know what her long term prognosis is, but the nurses tell me many babies go on to have no lasting effects from this disease.

In the meantime, I continued to struggle but was finally discharged yesterday. I immediately went to CHOC to see Abby. She looks good and is being very well taken care of. We are very lucky in that Brian's best friend Kevin is engaged to Mandy. We love her and she happens to be a NICU nurse at CHOC. On the days she's working she is Abigail's nurse. She was even able to be Abigail's nurse during surgery.

I have been home for about 24 hours now and have lots of catching up to do. The recovery is extra slow and painful because of the complications, but hopefully before long I will back to my normal self. Daddy is taking me to see Abby later today.

And speaking of Daddy, he has been the most amazing husband and father. He bounced back and forth from one hospital to the other, telling me about Abigail and telling Abigail about me. He read her books and, if I know him well, I'd bet he's given her all the latest MLB scores and stats as well.

I wish I could offer more about NEC, but being so sick I have been unable to do the usual obsessive internet research I normally do, and I have not had the chance to meet or speak with any of Abigail's doctors yet. Hopefully this week I will know more.

Well, this was a quick and dirty version of what actually took place this week, but we are so grateful to have our daughter safe and sound. So far we have only been able to touch her through the isolette, but we are looking forward to soon getting to hold her in our arms. We will keep you posted...

Oh, I almost forgot...GO DEVILS!

Back to the hospital for me...

Well, we bought a couple of weeks, but my time at home is officially over...at least for a while. The doctors have decided that I have too many unknown variables and they would prefer to monitor me in the hospital. They always ask where I would rather be, but this time they didn't give me much choice. So off I go to the land of no internet and horribly uncomfortable beds...

They couldn't do the test!!!

Turns out they couldn't do the test today. I won't bore you with the details but unfortunately there are other issues going on (nothing serious) that may have messed with the results. Instead they sent me to the hospital for monitoring while they (the OB and peri) debated whether to admit me or not. I am sure the look on my face made it very clear to them that I did not want to stay there. Anyhow, I was having a lot of contractions, of which some I definitely felt and others not at all, so they gave me some Procardia which seemed to settle things down. After many hours of observation I am back home again. The Procardia seems to do the trick, so I will stay on that for a few weeks and see how things go. Most importantly, Abigail is still doing great. Nothing suspicious on the monitor, but she did have the hiccups a lot! Next ultrasound is Monday morning.

Enough about me already. How about the Olympics? I am watching the Opening Ceremonies now. I was a little annoyed at Yahoo all day today because they kept posting medal counts and stories before the darn TV coverage had even started! I mean, can't they have a spoiler alert or something before they just put it all out there? I guess I'll have to change my homepage for a while. I am rooting for Michael Phelps to win lots of gold (I know his Aunt through work, even though for the longest time I didn't even know she was his Aunt.) There's also a female wrestler named Marcie Van Duesen whom we are hoping does well. She has ties to the firefighters and we played in a golf tournament a couple of years ago to raise money for her to get to China. I sure hope she made it there (female wrestling doesn't get top billing so I haven't heard). Can you tell I am a little excited to have something on TV other than reality shows and re-runs? I'll say this much, bedrest in the summertime stinks if you're a TV watcher. Ok, it's late and I had a long day, so it's off to sleep now...

Fetal Fibronectin test today

After some not-so-great news about my cervix yesterday (it has shortened to 1.6cm from 2.7cm on Monday), I will be heading to the doc today for another FFN test. Fetal Fibronectin is a protein they test for and if present, is a predictor of impending labor. They say a negative result indicates a 99% chance I will NOT go into labor in the next 2 weeks. Factoring in all of my circumstances, a positive result (which is much less reliable than the negative) will give me a 40% chance of labor in the next 2 weeks, and will also probably win me another stay at Hotel Hoag (the hospital)...for the remainder of my pregnancy. Ugh. The good news is, Abigail looked great on the ultrasound yesterday, the bad news is, it is just WAY too soon for her to come. Today I am 26 weeks 4 days. We REALLY need a negative! Fingers crossed...

Home is where the heart is.

Just a quick update...after a few drama-free days last week we were admitted back into the hospital on Friday. They wanted to monitor Abigail's heartbeat after the ultrasound on Friday. It was purely a precaution. They said if I was any other patient they would have just sent me home, but given the circumstances they are being extra careful. Anyhow, after 3 days of constant fetal monitoring she convinced the doctors that she is just fine and doing exactly what she should be at her gestational age. Today's ultrasound showed normal fluid levels, normal dopplers and normal heartbeat. Cervix is still shortened so strict bedrest continues to be a must.

It feels really good to be home without all the machines and poking and proding. Not to mention I am back online again. How can a hospital with a brand new maternity wing not have internet??? An amazing view of the Pacific Ocean, yes. But internet and cable TV in the rooms? Nope. Well, I take that back, you can pay a daily fee for cable (and yes...we did...we had to be able to see the Angels vs. Yankees series after all!)

So that's it from here for now. Hopefully now that I am home I can post updates more often. We are all hanging in there and trying to do the best we can for Abigail. Brian has just been amazing but he's exhausted. And in between the worries and taking care of me he has to go to work and save lives. Poor guy. We're 26 weeks today and counting! And praying for another 8 or 10...