Abby

Now everyone knows how she arrived early. Here's an update on whats going on with Abby. Like I said, until delivery she was doing fine-a normal, healthy baby. But she was eight weeks early. There are lots of things to worry about now that she's here. Mainly her lungs and heart developing. There is a valve leading into babies hearts that when they are full term they are able to close themselves. In Abby's case, she was born with it open and hasn't been able to close it herself. Between Saturday and Sunday, she was given three doses of medicine to help close it for her. Sometimes it takes more than one round of treatment to close the valve. She had an ecco yesterday and we are waiting to hear if the valve is closed. If it's still open they will start another round of treatment. Other than the valve she is doing really well. She has no sign of infection, which is also a common worry with a preemie. She was on an antibiotic over the weekend but her counts are up and the Dr thinks its related to my condition and she's no longer on the med. She has a feeding tube in, so shes getting very small amounts of feeds along with IV fluid and has been handling them really well. They weighed her last night and shes an even 3lbs- her weight will fluctuate but we were happy to hear that.

Until yesterday she was on a ventilator because when she was born her lungs were stiff and the valve opening, she needed help to breathe. On Sunday the Dr's were talking about taking her off the vent because she was breathing over it and getting tired of having it in. On Monday, the tube was a little high and Abby pulled it right out! I guess she had enough of it. Now she has a CPAP. This goes over her nose and straps over her head,I hate it because I can hardly see her face! It provides constant oxygen flow to keep her lungs inflated and keep them strong.

Abby is also a little jaundice so she is under the lights. She has to wear little sunglasses and again, we can't really see her face but they take them off so we can visit.

Basically, she just hangs out all day and we visit as much as we can. We've gotten to hold her a few times and I got to change her on Sunday. She has the cutest, tiniest butt I've ever seen! Now that she's off the vent, we got to hear her cry for the first time-it was a wonderful sound! I might not be saying that six months from now, but it was really good to hear it!

They told us to expect that Abby will be in the NICU until her due date, which was Feb 3, but she could certainly come home sooner. She gets over little hurdles each day, and we're keeping it together as much as we can. We'll post updates as we get them, it'll definitely give me something to do since I'm home bound for a while.