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Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Emory: Our birth story part 3

If you have been keeping up with the previous two posts you will see that my baby girl was 4 days old and back in the hospital because she was not eating and loosing weight very rapidly, her jaundice was elevated, and her sodium was so high it could have caused brain damage.

So after her little escapade of pulling the IV out of her head I was a nervous wreck! She still had to be under the jaundice lights for another 8 hours so I couldn't even snuggle her to make her ( and mommy) feel better :(

The next morning she was taken off the jaundice lights because her bilirubin count had fallen!

Baby Emory - 1
Sickness - 0

We were very excited. I got her out of the lights and held her as tight as I could! I laid her down to change her diaper and all of a sudden WAAAAHHHHH! She let out a terrible scream. I looked down and the little turkey had pulled the cord off her belly button!! She is 5 days old at this point how in the world can she manage to not only pull an IV that is taped to her head out, but also to pull the cord off her belly button!

I knew right then she is going to be more than a handful when she grows up!

Anyway her belly is bleeding and once again I am flipping out! (Hey I just had a baby I am allowed to freak out on occasion) the nurse comes running in and sees what is going on. Of course this was no big deal to her she just wiped her off and put some alcohol on her belly.

After this was all over the DR came in to talk with us. The jaundice was basically gone but her sodium was still elevated and even with IV fluids she was extremely dehydrated. So no more breastmilk she was on pure pedialite to hopefully get her hydrated and feeling better.

Halfway through the day and with no success getting Emory to wake up enough to eat a lactation and nutrition specialist came in to check in on us. She tried herself to feed her with no luck. We were never going to get to go home until she started eating on her own :( The DR comes in for the second time that day and says she has ordered an ultrasound of her head because the suction used to get her out of the birth canal may have damaged the part of her brain that tells her she is hungry. AWESOME!

Baby Emory - 1
Sickness - 1

The ultrasound is performed and we wait (not so patiently) for the results. After a couple of hours the DR then reappears and gives us the great news...the ultrasound was clear!!

Baby Emory - 2
Sickness - 0

So here we are with a 5 day old baby that hasn't ate on her own since she was 48 hours old and absolutely no answers.

That night for the first time in days she wakes up enough to get 2 oz down. And then 3 hours later another 2 oz. she had finally started eating!!

Just when everything started looking good another setback! She was born with a very small nose, but now the right side had completely closed up. She was now wanting to eat but couldn't because she couldn't breathe.

She was sent the next day to an ear nose and throat doctor to see what was happening with her little nostrils. They poked and probed and stuck catheters down both sides of her Nose all the way to her belly. She was hysterical and I was in tears just watching her. The doctor cleared her and put her on a nasal spray to hopefully reduce the swelling.

The nurses used a suction three times a day to clear the right side of her little nose. It was miserable to watch but because her breathing was stressed they placed her on a respiratory monitor.

Another step backwards. My baby has apnea :( when she sleeps she stops breathing completely for twenty seconds or more! Scary scary moments. She shakes herself and begins breathing again but not before the monitors drop and alarm like crazy!

Baby Emory - 2
Sickness - 1

Once her nose finally stopped swelling and she was able to eat regularly she was put back on breastmilk and taken off the IV.

Turns out she was having a very serious reaction to the medicine I was on after giving birth! Once i stopped taking it she was doing much better. So the final score

Baby Emory - 3
Sickness - 1 (she still had apnea)

We were finally released from children's after 4 days and able to go home.

And that was how we spent the first week with our little miracle..