35 Weeks

35 weeks gestation, Friday she will be 11 weeks old.

 

A time line:

 

3/30 - Started giving Azure fortifier in her milk to boost the calories she is getting.

4/5 - Azure is taken off all feedings and put back on IVs due to a bowel obstruction. Symptoms included gray/clay color stools, green bile, horrible apnea and bradycardia (episodes of not breathing and heart-rate dropping) and a highly uncomfortable baby. I ask and am told that it is highly unlikely that the bowel obstruction came as a result of the fortifier.

4/6 through 4/19 - Long slow recovery.

4/20 - Finally back on full feeds with straight breastmilk!  Go Azure!

4/21 - Azure gets immunization shots so we expect her to be uncomfortable for a couple days.

4/22 - Started giving Azure fortifier again. Oxygen saturation levels low, needs to poop!

4/23 - "Low Stim" day, no holding, baby uncomfortable and struggling to poop!

4/25 - Green bile again, stools "clay" color again.  They said she hadn't "declared herself" as having a problem yet.  T said, "Well I am declaring for her!"  She is switched to straight breastmilk and given a complete liver workup. Test results all come back normal.  The only difference is the fortifier.  They have yet to concede the fact that I was right all along about the fortifier.

4/29 - Stools coming around to normal color again, no alarms for apnea/brady episodes, mostly room air (requiring less oxygen).  They talk about adding a fortifier back (different one this time) since she hasn't gained weight this week.

5/1 - They give Azure time sans cannula to practice breathing on her own.  She does well as long as she is asleep but when she wakes up needs a bit of a boost.  Things, in general, are good.

5/2 - Azure gains 45 grams!  She is 3 pounds 5 ouces (1530g)!

 

Hmm.  Looks like the parents were right! I trust their medical judgements and am so very appreciative of their life saving efforts.  The problem comes in when they have people watching her that haven't been there in a week or "new" people who have never been assigned to her before and don't know her traits.  They need to listen to the people who are there every day and know her very very well, us.  I have also learned to write things down. What have they changed?  When did they change it?  How was she acting before compared to after the change? 

 

In other news:

As a family we raised over $2400 for the March of Dimes Walk America last weekend!  Yay!  Most of that was my mom's doing but we got the word out and there were several nurses from our NICU walking too.  Next year we will have more time to prepare and will hopefully be in a better place in our lives to be able to do more fundraising.