Memory Lane 8/13/2010

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8/13/2010 

hi everyone, someone of you having been texting/emailing to check in on sloane so i thought id send out an update. 

time is flying here in the NICU; we have been here for 3 weeks. sloane is getting bigger and stronger. she is up to 7lbs 5oz!! thats one pound since birth and almost 1lb and 1/2 since admission into the NICU.

sloane's 2nd swallow study is on wednesday. we are anxious to see how she does so that the drs. can make a plan for our discharge in terms of sloane's future feeding approach. hopefully, sloane's acid reflux/swelling have diminished and her weight gain has helped strengthen her throat muscles so she will show improvement from her 1st one 3 weeks ago.

she has gotten much more feisty which can be the good news or the not so good news.... i went home to sleep last night and the drs. called at 4am bc sloane had blood in her belly. she had torn out her feeding tube during the night and when they re-inserted the new one and checked its placement she had blood in her stomach. they stopped feeds and put her on an iv until they can figure out what is happening. im hoping its just bc she irritated herself with the tube but who knows.i cant believe she is back on an iv.  so of course, i have rationalized that this would have happened if i was here but the GUILT of not being here overrides it. i am also concerned about if i am going to be able to keep reinserting an nasal feeding tube when she pulls it out.

sloane is truly resilient...sloane is less affected by our setbacks it seems than i am. alan said the other day "babe, sloane is not the problem; she will be fine. she is stronger than her mother."  and i say thank god for that bc this is the hardest thing i have ever experienced. 

 the blueberry is much more alert and is enjoying going wireless so we can walk around the halls. daddy gave her a bath today and mommy filed her nails..it was a real spa day. :) right now, she and daddy are napping together. 

the nurses continue to be wonderful. if we go home at night to sleep, sometimes we come back to a scrapbook page one of them has made of sloane from the night before. 

we are started to realize that we dont know normal baby behavior vs sloane's behavior. its hard to sit back and say ok, this is fine. all babies do this. rather than sending out a red alert to the nurses. hopefully we will have a better understanding when we come home. being 1st time parents is hard enough, but in this situation sloane is kicking our asses!! we laugh about it daily!! she has brought us to our knees. neither one of us can remember life prior to her arrival and it feels like she has always been here...i mean seriously is it only 3 1/2 weeks since her birth??????

so wednesday is the day we have waited over 2 weeks for...its the big game as alan says. we know nothing major will change in the immediate but it would be a blessing to see some improvement in regards to sloane's swallowing skills and the reflux induced swelling in her throat. id like to hope that we will be home by labor day. 

we hope everyone is healthy and enjoying their summer. say a little prayer that on wednesday, the blueberry puts on her big girl pants and once again shows us what she is made of!!!!

xo, sloane's mommy and daddy