Day 17: A murmur

WARNING!
The photos you are about to see are of two VERY cute babies. The diapers are not trying to eat the babies, they are trying to keep the linens dry as apparently the babies have figured out how to pee out of the micro preemie size diaper.
(Dave went to the hospital yesterday to drop off breast milk and the nurse snapped a few quick pictures of the girls for us. Apparently she felt the micro preemie diapers were too small as the girls were peeing out of the diapers. So she put them in preemie size and mom thinks it looks quite hilarious as the diapers are HUGE on them.)


Emma in her preemie diaper...loving being on her belly!

Adalyn in her preemie daiper...also loving being on her belly!

First off, a quick update on me. I have been fever free for over 24 hours! I am feeling good too! However, I am back to having to wait 7 days after my symptoms started to see the girls. The CDC recommends waiting this long to be around immune compromissed individuals which both of our girls are. So as much as I miss them (which is a ton) it is not worth exposing them to something. We found out that the nurse told us wrong, Dave has to wait 4 days after my fever is gone. So that means we both can go visit on wednesday. Hard, but so worth it to keep our girls healthy.

We will start off with Miss Adalyn first. She is doing well. They increased her feeds yesterday to 10ml every 3 hours and so far she is tolerating that great. She did not poop last night so hopefully she does that today. She is still having brady alarms, but not too many & she is not needing any stimulation most of them time. She is still on a CPAP of 5 on room air.

Miss Emma had another rough night friday night in terms of number of brady alarms. Saturday morning her nurse came in and heard a murmur on her. So the doctors ordered a heart echo and her PDA is back. It is moderate size which is what is was before she got any medicine. The doctors said that this could explain why Emma has been having periods of more alarms, needs a little more oxygen at times and also why she spits up more at times. The PDA can open and close on its own so that is why the symptoms may not occur all the time. However, the fact remains that the PDA is back. The doctor said that PDAs can reopen for different reasons, but one is an increase in fluid volume in the body. Well, this has been happening in the form of increased feeding volume. So they have decided that at this point Emma's symptoms are not severe enough that she needs surgery, but rather they want to try decreased her feedings to 4ml every 3 hours, leave her TPN & lipid volume as is, and watch her til monday and see if the PDA will shrink or close again on its own. So Emma will have a echo again on monday as long as her symptoms do not get worse. Emma had a good day yesterday and last night in terms of brady alarms. She had minimal alarms and needed minimal stimulation. She also did not need any oxygen and was not spitting up. One other thing her nurse decided to change was to get rid of her and Adalyn's Z-flo beds (these special foam beds that they can mold to any position). The nurse felt that these beds may be contributing to the problem since both girls are very sensitive to position and these beds are not the most supportive. They can still hear Emma's murmur, but we are encouraged that for the past 24 hours it has not been causing her any problems. Please pray that the Ultimate Physician, the God of miracles, our Amazing Heavenly Father, do His work with Emma and close her PDA so that she does not need surgery.

Emma is doing fine with her feedings, but she also needs to poop. Never knew I could be so hung up on poo :) Emma is also on a CPAP of 5 on room air. Please continue to pray that God protect Emma and Adalyn from infection, that they tolerate their feedings, that they continue to grow & develope appropriately. And please join us in praising God for protecting the girls from my illness. It has been 4 days since they were exposed to me and if I had Influenza and either of the girls caught it from me they should have shown symptoms by now. Praise God!

Oh weights. Adalyn & Emma both weighed 2 lbs 3 oz (990 grams) last night...ladies and gentlemen we have a tie :) The nurses tell me that they look bigger...Mom can't wait to witness this on her own!