the grandparents bought the kids a big bag of that pink bubble gum. the kind that you only get on halloween and it's super hard to chew. not to mention the taste lasts all of 5 minutes.
olivia wanted a piece after school today. she also asked if i'd start chewing it for her.
thanks, but no thanks!
so after the call from the hospital the other day i'm a bit anxious every time the phone rings. yesterday i was taking a nap and the phone rang. caller id said "spectrum" which is josie's hospital. i was pretty freaked out and thought "not again!!!"
caller: hi, this is so & so from spectrum nicu
me: oh, hi (with a very shaky voice)
caller: don't worry, it's not an emergency! i'm just calling to set up your appointment with josie's doctor...
that poor secretary...i bet she has to say "don't worry, it's not an emergency" with every phone call she makes!!
wow, it's hard to believe this little girl turned our world upside down just 1 week ago.it's 8am and i just gave my 2 little boys fruit snacks.
i figure that since i have 2 week restriction of picking kids up & driving, i should have a 2 week grace period of feeding them whatever makes them happy, right?
around 3:30pm i got a call from josie's neonatal doctor. she had had a few alarms this afternoon and her color was off. they had several concerns:
by the time we got to the hospital they had stabilized her and she was back on the cpap (which helps her breathe) and her blood gas was looking better. in addition the heart x-ray (not quite sure what that's called) had shown that her aorta was just fine and her pda was almost closed up :) EXCELLENT news!!
the infection is still a possibility but they won't know for a few more days. but she's on new antibiotics to fight off any potentially new infections.
as of tonight, the docor said that aside from the cpap she's pretty much back to the same good/stable condition she was when we left her yesterday. so with that good news we are heading home in a little bit.
it was pretty scary getting that kind of call at home, but i'm sure it won't be the last. just pray for us as we deal with the ups & downs emotionally of having our little girl away from us.
(small bit of humor today... her neonatal doctor is Dr. Doctor)
right after thanksgiving we had the 20wk ultrasound for our baby. we left thinking everything was fine. the next week my doctor called saying they had found a few "issues" with the ultrasound and we needed to see a specialist. basically, they found cysts in her brain and there was a gap between her first 2 toes. seeing these two items together raised a red flag for trisomy 18 & downs syndrome. needless to say, it was a pretty scary time for us as we didn't know what the future held for our baby.
on december 12th, we saw the specialist who preformed a second ultrasound. he confirmed the cysts & toes and scheduled us for an amnio. our risk of trisomy 18 or downs syndrome was around 1%. a week or so later we had our amnio results back - everything looked fine! praise god!
fast forward to last thursday (january 31st). the specialist wanted to do one last ultrasound to make sure the brain cysts had cleared up. basically it was just a routine follow-up. while driving to the appointment i caught a patch of ice and spun my car out into a large curb. no one hit me and it was a pretty low impact crash. i was fine. the accident happened right in front of amway world headquarters. before i knew it, security was there calling me a tow truck and directing me to the nearest lobby for coffee and donuts.
that afternoon i headed back to the doctor so they could just do a quick check to make sure everything was fine. well, i should say i assumed it was going to be a "quick check" as i brought garrett & ryan with me. nope - a 1 hour non-stress test. fun stuff with 2 little boys!!! by the end of the hour, toys had been put in the toliet, pee cups had been pulled out of the garbage and the iud display had been used as a cell phone.
the testing showed that the baby's heartbeat dipping so i was sent to the hospital for the night. i was just supposed to get some fluids and be discharged in the morning. the next morning i was told that the heartrate was still dipping and they couldn't figure out why. the doctors decided to do a c-section.
i was not at all prepared to have my baby born yet. but it was totally god's timing. once they delivered her via c-section they found out that her placenta was very small and the umbilical cord was both skinny & short (only 22 cm...32 cm is considered short). both of these conditions would most likely have prevented her from surviving full term. most likely she would have stopped moving one day and then it would be too late. neither one of these conditions would have been picked up in a routine office visit. thank god for the car accident and the monitoring i received that afternoon!
hi everyone-
thanks so much for all your prayers & thoughts over the past few days. it has truly been a whirlwind and we are still doing our best to process it all. soon i'll do my best to explain all that happened last friday and how josie came into our life a tad earlier than expected :)
but for now, i just want to give you a few updates and prayer requests...
After a few unexpected events on Thursday, the doctors decided that it was best to do a C-section and bring Josie into the world on Friday at 1:03PM.
Both Elizabeth and Josie are doing well. Josie is getting a little bit of help from a machine that pumps air into her to remind her to breathe. Her test results are all getting more positive each time they take them.
Elizabeth will be discharged in the next few days and Josie will remain in the hospital for 6-8 weeks while she continues to grow and develop.
I'm sure Elizabeth will get online soon - so I'll let her share "the rest of the story".
Until then ... Congratulations Tim and Elizabeth! And, welcome little Josie.
posted by sarah
