Have you ever laughed and cried at the same time? I'm not talking about laughing until you cry. I'm not talking about tears of joy that turn into laughter. I'm talking about experiencing both of these opposite emotions at the exact same time. I hadn't - until today.
Madison had a rough night with more than 7 bradycardia/apnea episodes throughout the night. This is a symptom of the infection and not surprising to the doctors. But, since they were coming with such frequency, the doctors decided to take her off of the nasal cannula and put her back on CPAP in order to give her body a rest from fighting so hard, in the hopes that she can rest enough to start getting better. For those of you who don't remember from the first blog, CPAP is continuous positive airway pressure - it's a middle ground between the ventilator that Maddie was on when she was first born and the nasal cannula that she's been on for the past couple weeks. The CPAP sends a much stronger and more constant flow of oxygen through the nasal passageway, making Maddie have to work less to breathe - and making bradycardia/apnea episodes less likely and allowing her body to rest enough to hopefully fight the infection off. Her bloodwork today was pretty much the same as yesterday. Her CRP went down by one point and her white blood cell count looked a little better also, but the doctor said that such a small change isn't significant enough to believe that the infection is on it's way out. So she decided to put her on a third antibiotic to try to give the other two a boost. So at noon today Maddie began her triple dose of antibiotics. She remains on IV fluids, which the doctors have now supplemented with electrolytes and lipids so that she hopefully won't lose any more weight (she's now 2lb 8.4oz - since Wednesday night her weight has yo-yo'd a bit, but all in all she's lost less than an ounce as of tonight - which is great all things considered). In another effort to get her to not lose weight, they're going to put her back into an isolette tonight. The doctor doesn't believe that they'll need direct emergency access to her, and apparently being in an isolette where it's more quiet and climate controlled, it will make weight gain easier for her. Tomorrow morning she'll have another round of bloodwork and possibly another x-ray - so we'll see where it takes us. It feels like Maddie has taken a step backwards by having to go back on CPAP, yet tonight she seems to be making a small step forward by being allowed back in her isolette.
Melia continues to do very well. She's up to 3lbs 5oz and is really thriving. She's up to 30ml of milk every 3 hours, that's exactly one ounce per feeding, so she's getting a total of 8 ounces per day! She gets to have 2 feedings per day by bottle (one in the morning and one in the evening). She didn't do quite as well today as she did yesterday in terms of how many mls she was able to consume during her feedings, but she's working on it. It's amazing how such a small change can exhaust her little body so easily. She screamed and cried for a full 1/2 hour before her feeding this morning (this chick knows when it's time to eat!) and by the time the clock hit 11am and it was time for her feeding, she had wiped herself out and all she wanted to do once I had her out of the isolette and in my hands was sleep. So it took a lot to get her to stay awake long enough to really make a dent in her bottle. She'll get the hang of it though. I mean, she's used to being able to sleep and eat at the same time with her feeding tube, so asking her to stay awake while she eats might just be asking too much of her sometimes. Mommy can relate - I don't like to work for my food either! ;-)
I've never in my life been so torn in two. Walking into the NICU this morning was so hard. After so many days of both girls doing so well, seeing Maddie battle this infection isn't easy and to see her back on CPAP was really difficult. And then to see Lia right next to her making the cutest little faces at me, in her little outfit, doing so well - it was like I was literally split in two with half of me so happy and half of me equally as sad.
I laughed for Lia- and I cried for Maddie - at the very same time.
- Mike and Amanda
- I am a 29 year old mother of identical twin girls, Madison and Melia. They were born at 29 weeks, 1 day gestation and spent 8 weeks in the NICU at St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston, NJ. They hit 40 weeks gestation on August 20, 2009 and are now considered full term. Even though they are actually 11 weeks old, they are just now considered to be newborns. I started this blog as a way to keep friends and family informed on what was going on with the girls while they were in the NICU. It has turned into a keepsake and a therapuetic outlet. I hope that everyone continues to follow along and enjoys sharing this first hand experience of first-time parents of premature twin girls.
Words that I came to live by while on strict bedrest for 6 weeks during my pregnancy, 4 of which were spent in the hospital ~ Redirect the substantial energy of your frustration and turn it into positive, effective, unstoppable determination. Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results.
