Last night was sibling visiting at LIJ. Mema was coming over to babysit while Jon and I took Harry to see Golda, but Jon was so exhausted that he actually decided to take a nap. Given the infrequency of that occurrence I decided not to wake him. He woke up just before we were set to leave so Mema got to come with us to see Golda and Jon stayed home with Leah and Micah.
While we were signing Harry in to the group the charge nurse told me, all happy, that Golda had been moved. I asked where she was moved to and was told it was the same level of care, but they had gotten slammed with newborns and had to shuffle rooms. When I finally made it inside I realized Golda was in a step-down room. That means that instead of one nurse to two patients, it was one nurse to five patients! And the patients isolettes were so close together that I just fit in between (barely). I was not happy and spoke to the charge nurse about it. She assured me the decision was made by the entire medical team caring for Golda and it was fine for her to be there. I clarified that with all her apnea and bradycardia episodes I was concerned but again she said it was fine. S ince I have been such a hormonal mess lately, launching into tears at the drop of a hat, I didn't want to push it too much figuring I was just over-reacting. So, we broke Golda out of her isolette for some snuggling with Mommy and Mema. Harry was very excited to find her out and proceeded to poke away at her! I told him that I had assured her she would not be poked by him since he had poked his brother and sister already, but he said nope, she needed poking too! After Harry went back to the room with the Child Life Specialists Mema held Golda for a bit.
Note how nicely her face is filling out and how her arms aren't just skin and bones anymore!
When I called to check on her this morning, my concerns from yesterday were justified. Apparently she had a number of episodes of apnea with one slowing of the heart rate (not to to the level of bradycardia though) and they moved her back to the higher care room. She is not in the same location, because of the new babies, but she is receiving the level IV care again. They repeated the blood culture and started antibiotics just in case since infection can cause these symptoms. We will have final results on the urinalysis that was done two days ago today and on this blood culture in two days. On the positive side, she is eating 15 ml of fortified breast milk and they are stopping her hyperalimentation (the extra food she was receiving)! They will leave her broviac (central line in her chest) in for another few days just to be sure she is tolerating the feedings well enough before they remove it. She now weighs 1380 g (3 lbs. 0.67 oz.).
Last night while we were there the surgeon stopped by. I told him that I had heard his news (that he will be shipping out to Iraq in six weeks) and he confirmed it. After telling him to be careful, I asked who will be taking over Golda's case and he, thankfully, said Dr. Dolgin, the chief of pediatric surgery (the doctor we consulted when we first found out about this at 23 weeks). In addition, there is a worldwide expert on esophageal atresia who used to work out of Boston, I think at the Deaconess, now semi-retired, who occasionally comes to NY to do surgery. There is another baby born at almost the same time as Golda with the same problems at the NICU at LIJ now too. They are trying to coordinate their two surgeries with this surgeon's schedule so that he can do with the procedures with Dr. Dolgin assisting. Needless to say, both of these possibilities sound great to us. Additionally, I asked about how Golda will be when she comes home before the surgery. He said she will come home on monitors so we can sleep at night and not have to stand vigil over her - the monitors will sound if she needs assistance. She will also have the suction tube and feeding tube that we will need to learn to care for. I keep telling myself it will only be a few months and we can do it, but oy, it's a lot more than we had anticipated while pregnant. Jon is much more optimistic, saying that it will be fine and it's a good thing she will have monitors so we won't have to stand over her all the time and once we learn how to do it, we will become old hats at it. I know he's right and I know that we will be fine with it all once we are properly instructed, but until it actually happens it a bit overwhelming.
Anyway, on to Leah and Micah. They are doing great. We can look at them and see the change in size for both of them already! They have finally started eating all that we are giving them so we are going to increase what we offer again - Micah to 85 ml and Golda to 75 ml. We recently received a baby scale as a gift for them (thank you!) so I will weigh them tonight when they are stripped down for their baths.
The best part about caring for them both is that they are starting to be much more alert after feedings. They will sit there and look all around, turning their heads this way and that to take it all in. We prop them up in their boppies and they lay there all happy for about a half hour to an hour before conking out again.
That's all for now! Hope you have a good day!
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