The NICU Rollercoaster

Sorry, no pictures tonight.  It's been a really busy day and I wanted to post a quick update before we head back to the NICU for the night.

Madelyn and Sophia had both been doing very well and were pretty much tied for first in the race for "First Baby Out of the NICU" honors.  Maddy suffered a minor setback over the last 24 hours with regards to her feedings.  The net of it is, she's not tolerating the volume of milk she's being given.  She was doing well with spreading it out over more time.  Before each new feeding, they check the residuals in her belly to see how much hasn't digested and she still had seven out of the 18ml they had given her during her last feeding, sitting in her belly.  She's been spitting up and it's basically too much food for her.  As a point of reference, she's supposed to be getting 25ml each feeding.

So, even though I was going to be really excited to tell you that both Maddy and Sophie had their PICC lines removed, permanently, Maddy received an IV (hopefully, temporarily) to help supplement her nutrition until she can handle more food.  She's still on the high-flow cannula getting 3L of air.

Sophia on the other hand is pushing ahead and is tolerating her 20ml of milk each feeding.  They took her off of the high flow cannula and now she needs just 2L of air.  So far, so good.  Her weight looks good and she's producing the bowel movements of a breastfed baby.  I'll leave it at that in case anyone's eating dinner.


Isabelle's x-ray today did not show any air in the abdominal cavity, and she pooped a little bit for the first time :)  However, the doc said her bowel looks very enlarged.  He said the perforation could have healed itself and constricted to form a blockage. The treatment for that is the same as the perforation...find it and cut it out.  The surgeon wants to wait a week after the last drain was put in to decide whether to operate, which means we should know more this weekend.  Even then, she wants to take one or both of the drains out to see how she does. Maybe in that time we'll get lucky and it will fix itself.  We're definitely getting a bit more hopeful, but Dr. Colvert still seems to think it's only a matter of time until she'll need surgery :(

I'm going to do some more research on my own for alternative treatments, because that's how I am, but we do have a lot of confidence in the doctors/nurses and trust in the care our girls are receiving at Edward.

If anyone reading this had something similar happen with their preemies and wants to share the experience, please feel free.