So today is Thursday and is what used to be referred to as Milestone Thursday. Every Thursday I would hit another landmark week in the pregnancy and would just hope to make it one more week to the following Thursday. Obviously I didn't make it to today pregnant, but still, the girls have made it in a big way! They are now 30 weeks old in gestational age - yet tomorrow, they will be one week old. This week has flown by way too quickly!
Today was a crazy day. Way too eventful for my liking. Not only was there so much going on with the girls, but today was also Mike's first day back at work, so I was at the NICU by myself for the first time and the timing couldn't have been worse. I called the unit at about 9:30am to check on the girls and to let the nurses know that I would be on my way up to the hospital shortly. At that time Dr. Kamtorn hadn't made her rounds yet, so we weren't sure where the day would take us. By the time I got up to the hospital about an hour later, everything had changed. I walked in to the NICU to see both Madison and Melia off of the ventilators and only on nasal cannulas. I couldn't believe it. Madison was also in an incubator, which is a step up from the rad
iant warmer bed that she'd been in since her birth day. Radiant warmers are used when a baby is very unstable or extremely premature. Small babies have a large surface area compared to their volume, and little body fat, and cannot maintain their own temperature. The shelves attached to the warmer allow monitors and other equipment to be placed conveniently near the baby, the glass side walls prevent the baby from being chilled by drafts, and the open nature of the radiant warmer allows physicians and nurses to have easy access to the baby from all sides during the most critical periods. An incubator however is considered a step in the right direction because it implies that the doctors feel relatively confident that they won't need to have easy access for critical periods, or have large equipment (such as a ventilator) next to the baby. When a baby is relatively stable but still premature or requiring intravenous fluids or other special attention, he or she is cared for in an incubator. The incubator keeps the baby warm with moistened air in a clean environment, and helps to protect the baby from noise, drafts, infection, and excess handling. So it seems that Maddie is moving on up! She did have one apnea/bradycardia episode a couple hours after being taken off of the ventilator, but she woke herself up without any assistance from the nurse, so this episode was considered to be very mild. She had her umbilical lines taken out today and was even able to lay on her tummy for the first time ever! Unfortunately, the nurse didn't lay her on her tummy until I had left for the day, so I didn't get to see it. She was on very little oxygen all daylong, staying mostly in the range of 21%-23%, and only desaturated for about 30 seconds after she'd been given a bath by her nurse at night, which is amazing considering she was on a ventilator when she woke up this morning. She is doing most of her breathing completely on her own! She is so strong, it's unbelievable. Who would've thought that the little one - the little 2 pounder - would put on such a performance. Today, Madison was a superstar in the NICU.
iant warmer bed that she'd been in since her birth day. Radiant warmers are used when a baby is very unstable or extremely premature. Small babies have a large surface area compared to their volume, and little body fat, and cannot maintain their own temperature. The shelves attached to the warmer allow monitors and other equipment to be placed conveniently near the baby, the glass side walls prevent the baby from being chilled by drafts, and the open nature of the radiant warmer allows physicians and nurses to have easy access to the baby from all sides during the most critical periods. An incubator however is considered a step in the right direction because it implies that the doctors feel relatively confident that they won't need to have easy access for critical periods, or have large equipment (such as a ventilator) next to the baby. When a baby is relatively stable but still premature or requiring intravenous fluids or other special attention, he or she is cared for in an incubator. The incubator keeps the baby warm with moistened air in a clean environment, and helps to protect the baby from noise, drafts, infection, and excess handling. So it seems that Maddie is moving on up! She did have one apnea/bradycardia episode a couple hours after being taken off of the ventilator, but she woke herself up without any assistance from the nurse, so this episode was considered to be very mild. She had her umbilical lines taken out today and was even able to lay on her tummy for the first time ever! Unfortunately, the nurse didn't lay her on her tummy until I had left for the day, so I didn't get to see it. She was on very little oxygen all daylong, staying mostly in the range of 21%-23%, and only desaturated for about 30 seconds after she'd been given a bath by her nurse at night, which is amazing considering she was on a ventilator when she woke up this morning. She is doing most of her breathing completely on her own! She is so strong, it's unbelievable. Who would've thought that the little one - the little 2 pounder - would put on such a performance. Today, Madison was a superstar in the NICU. 
Unfortunately, Melia didn't do as well. Coming off of the ventilator really stressed her out. She was unable to maintain her oxygen and was really struggling to catch her breath. So, she was put back on CPAP in the early afternoon. Just like on Sunday, it was so terrible to see her struggle. An x-ray done after she was taken off of the ventilator showed that her lungs were cloudy - this was not evident on yesterday's x-ray because she was on the ventilator at that point. So, it was determined that to put her back on CPAP was the best thing to do for her. Dr. Kamtorn is hoping that she's only on it for a couple more days, but mommy is in no rush! I can't stand the thought of taking her off too early and watching her go through that again. Of course, it's a necessary evil to determine where she's at and it's important to challenge her in order to get her to work on her own - but again, it's just so hard to watch. In other Melia news, she was put back under the phototherapy lights since her bilirubin numbers went back up. Also, she had her umbilical lines removed and a PICC line put in. Poor Melia had a really busy and stressful day - and of course - so did mommy. Luckily, before they put Melia's eye mask back on and before she needed to go back o on the CPAP, I was able to snap a couple quick pictures of her without all her head gear. ;-)
All of this happening on one day was almost too much to handle. Trying to break up my time between both girls since Mike wasn't there today - trying to be happy for Madison's progress, but being almost unable to due to concern for Melia. It was a crazy day. A day that had ups for Maddie - downs for Lia - and a mixture of both for mommy. Tomorrow is a new day. Let's hope for a good one for both my baby girls.
