She smiles!

Real life has taken over and the posts are few and far between. Life is hectic. Emma is doing well. she has one more blood draw and then we're done with those for awhile. At her last Doctor appointment (her 4 months well baby and post-op rolled into one)she weighed 8 lbs 7 oz. She HAS to be nearing 9 lbs now. She is slowly growing out of her preemie clothes and into 0-3 months. I went to pull out Lily's old clothes and found that I had either sold them or given them all away! Granted, most of them were borrowed from a good friend so I'll have to hit her up again (You know who you are).

Emma is quite the character. Like all kids she wants attention. TONS of attention. I think we may just have another drama queen in training. She is not content to sit and take in the worl. She wants to be held, talked to, walked around and in her face. Now this isn't really a problem so much as it is inconvenient at times. Like when I'm trying to clean. Just don't ask to stop by.

Most nights she only wakes up once a night and goes right back to sleep. Those nights are GREAT. She eats about 3-4 ounces every 3-4 hours. I fully weaned her (due to medical reasons). She seems to do okay on the formula but she was prescribed zantaz for reflux. She spits up ALOT.

The biggest news is Emma has begun to smile. I'm not talking little grimace gas smiles. I'm talking open mouthed, toothless, grins from ear to ear. Gotta love it. They are few and far between but they just make me melt when she does it. Oh, and she has now fallen victim to mommy's bow fetish (I'm sorry sweetie, but they're cute!)

Long overdue update

Sorry for the long overdue update but here it is. Emma came home last tuesday. The nurses were MORE than ready for her to come home. She cries unless she's being held which makes for quite the unusual arrangement in a NICU setting. She played musical nurses while there. LOL. She had an eye appointment last wednesday and the news was awesome! It seems as though the surgery worked really well. We don't have to go back for a month! YAY. She lost a few ounces in the nicu but has since gained it back. She's back to her normal self. :)

I did my doula thing last thursday. The mom did AMAZING, and it was a qujick labor. It was really fun and I'm looking forward to the next birth.

Father's day was nice. Saturday night we went out with Sean's dad to Tulsa Rib Company. Yumm (the leftover on sunday were good too). Sunday was a lazy day. We got up. Hung out. I folded about 6 loads of laundry. Sean and I both got naps. After Caden came home (He was with his bio father) we took the kids to Disneyland. Got some ice cream. Yummy. Caden went on Star Tours with Sean for the first time. Sean has been waiting for that for a LONG time. So, that was fun. We came home had in-n-out and hit the hay.

:)

More tests.

Emma's still in the NICU. Her last spell was about 4:30 today. She had a few tests today and is having the ph probe done tomorrow. Hopefully she'll start doing better soon so she can come home. Not much going on.

We took the kids to Disneyland today. They had a blast. Lily was able to go on the cars for the first time today. It was an all around nice day.

Still having spells.

Emma won't be coming home today either. She had 5 spells yesterday and apparently has already had a few this morning. They are going to do an x-ray just to make sure everything is clear. Also they're going to do a head sonogram to clear her of any brain bleeding. If all that comes out normal and she is still having spells of the decreased heartrate and desaturations of her oxygen level then they will order a ph probe to trest the acid level in her stomach to see if she is having reflux issues causing the spells. The probe goes down her throat and into her stomach and is done for 24 hours. Last time she had it done she was about 3 lbs and managed to pull it out, so aside from a straight jacket I'm not really sure how they'll be able to do it. Lets just hope she behaves herself so she can come home sooner. If she is having reflux issues than they will start her on meds. I'm about to leave to go feed her. Poor baby.

A Little Update

Emma won't be coming home today. Unfortunately, she had a few pretty bad spells last night. The one at 3 a.m. required oxygen. She has to go 24 hours without a spell to come home again. So for now, we play the waiting game.

Surgery today

12:25 p.m.- So far we’ve been doing a lot of hurrying up and waiting. Emma has not eaten since 7 a.m. and is not real pleased about it. Sean has finally gotten her asleep for now. She was admitted at 10 a.m. They sent us upstairs to the pro-op area. However, the NICU was waiting for her and shortly after getting upstairs we were sent back downstairs. She was weighed and is now weighing 7 lbs. 7 oz. She had an I.V. put in. It took awhile to get a correct blood pressure reading since she was screaming and screaming.

Sean and I are hanging in here. Barely. It’s rough to be back here. We never thought we’d have to come back here and are flooded with memories. The smell of the NICU is making me neasous. I don’t want to be here but I don’t want to leave Emma either. Hopefully, the surgery will be sooner rather than later. She was “added in” so she will have it whenever they can fit her in today. It can be right at 1:30 or as late as 7 p.m. We’re hoping that she comes out of surgery well and doesn’t have any breathing issues afterwards.

The best outcome for the surgery is that it will stop the progression of the ROP and we can work on ‘fixing” the damage at a later point in time.

2:00 p.m.- Still waiting for the OR to open up. Emma’s I.V. was occluded so it had to be restarted. She is starting to settle down and sleep a bit. We’ll start the drops to dilate her eyes when the OR calls.

3:30 p.m.- The OR called. The drops were put in and her eyes are dilated. We’ve talked to both her optometrist and her anesthesiologist and signed the consent forms. It’s real. This is happening. I’m starting to get really antsy and just want it over with. We called our pastor to meet us here to pray over Emma before she heads into surgery.

4:15 p.m.- They prepped her for surgery and put her on the warming table. She looked so innocent and tiny! Our pastor managed to make it just in the nick of time to pray with us. We then walked her to the OR and let them wheel her in. We both managed to choke back our tears and try not to think about it and instead joked with the pastor.

We’re expecting the surgery to take about an hour but with time to put her under and bring her back they’re expecting about 2 hours. Sean just left to go get Lily from the babysitter. He’s going to take her home and call around to see who can come stay with Lily so he can come back and be here for when Emma gets out of surgery.

6:30 p.m.- Dr. Mehta just came out and let me know the surgery went well. The tried to extubate her but she was holding her breath so they reintubated her. He said she was doing very well though. She was back in the NICU being stabilized. Before we were able to go see her she ended up pretty much pulling out her ventilator and did just fine. I guess she just needed to wake up from being put under a little bit more. She is weak but doing well. I will probably be heading back at 9 for a feeding and then coming home to get some rest. We are exhausted!

Here are some pictures from today’s events.

Waiting for Surgery

Pre-Op

Post-Op

Going for Surgery

Unfortunately, today's optometry appointment didn't go so hot. IT seems as though emma's ROP has progressed to threashold disease (Stage 3 ROP). She is scheduled for surgery on friday. We go in at 10 a.m. for her to be admitted back into the NICU. She cannot nurse after 6 a.m. The surgery will be sometime after 1:30 p.m. and may be as late as 7 p.m. UGGH. She will NOT ne happy. She will be put under and intubated. There is a chance that she may have trouble coming out of the anestesia or have issues with apnea once again. She most likely will come home on saturday unless of course she is not stable. If she's not stable then she'll stay until she is. The surgery will not fix what damage is already done it will simply keep it from progressing any further. If this works than she'll need glasses. If it doesn't work she can go blind.

No Change

Well, Emma has no change in her eyes. We go back again in a week to check again. Apparently there was a bit of concern on whether the right eye was starting to get worse or not, but he said it was a fine line so for now he'll call it no change. Emma is turning into quite the pistol lately. She cries. Alot. I think she is now turning into my hardest of all 3 kids. She starts crying and just won't stop. She likes to use me as a pacifier (which my other kids did too). In the evenings she cries and cries. We're thinking she might have colic. And yes, we've ruled out numerous other things. Other than that she's doing great though. She saw the occupational therapist last week and she said she's right on track and even ahead in some things. That's good news. She's getting bigger by the day and really starting to "feel" heavy. She's also definitely filling out and looking more and more like Caden did as a baby.