Home Health Nurse

Home Health Nurse came today to check on Nina. Nina weight 7 lbs. 15 oz. Wednesday when we left the hospital. Today she weighed in at 8 lbs. 7 oz. She gained a half a pound since she has been home!! Everything checked out beautifully.

Sister Presents

Rebecca bought Nina a princess blanket that she has tucked around her. It has a shoe on a pillow and flowers. Nina bought Rebecca a bracelet and a matching one for herself. The bracelets are freshwater pearls with coral beads. Rebecca just loves it and loves that Nina has one too!

Happiness is...

Ultrasound of her head

Nina had an ultrasound of her head done this morning. Don't know the results yet, but the neonatologist was pretty sure everything would come back normal. It was just to make sure. She has been taken off the pulse oximeter, the device that measures oxygen saturation in her blood, since she has not had any problems with that for at least 5 days or more. Also, when we are there holding her we can take her off the other monitors to mimic what it will be like at home. The neonatologist wants to make sure that we are comfortable with taking her home before we actually do that. We are hoping to take her home this week, just like we have been the past two weeks. I'll believe it when she is at home. She's growing and doing better everyday.

Not Home Yet

Nina isn't home yet. She had a Video Swallow Test this morning that I got to watch. They fed her a barium solution and x-rayed her while she was swallowing it. The goal was to see if she was aspirating any liquid or see if she was having an reflux. She did not do either. She had no problems eating at all and did wonderfully.

Car Seat Test

Nina had a car seat test yesterday. I strapped her in and she had to stay in it for one and a half hours and have no problems. If she had to be taken out for any reason, time would have to start over. Nina passed the first time with flying colors! Her little droopy head gave me some concern, but all was fine.

So my pediatrician had a Neonatologist consult that happened the other day. They were thinking that maybe the gestational age of Nina was off. The Neonatologist said that it could be but it is hard to tell, but probably no more than a week. Everyday we are seeing improvement. She is gaining weight, more alert, cries louder, has less episodes while eating and asleep. She is doing great. They decided it should be 5 days without an episode before she comes home. We are hoping to bring her home next week sometime. Thank you for the prayers and support. We truly appreciate it.

So technical terms for what Nina is doing:

Apnea (ap'-nee-ah) is a pause in the regular breathing of a baby lasting longer then 15-20 seconds. Normal breathing may speed up or slow down but usually does not stop for any length of time. Some infants, especially premature babies, may have times when they stop breathing for longer than normal. During the pause, the baby's heart rate may slow and, if the apnea is severe, the baby's skin color may change. The baby may look pale or blue. The pause in breathing may be just for a short time, and the baby may restart breathing without help. If the pause occurs for a longer period, the baby may need a reminder to restart breathing.

Bradycardia (bray-dee-car'-dee-ah) is the medical term for a heart rate that is too slow. How slow is too slow varies. Babies usually have heart rates faster than adults do; so a heart rate of 80 may be fine for an adult but may be low for a newborn. Also premature babies tend to have faster heart rates than full term babies do and the heart rate tends to decrease with age after birth. In general, a heart rate of 120­-160 is normal for a premature and 80-140 for a full term.
(info from http://www.pediatrics.emory.edu/divisions/neonatology/parent_info3.html)

It has to be 3 days without any problems with either apneas or bradys before she can come home. She was doing really well, but then had two last night. Upper GI came back good. Nothing wrong up there. It is scary to think about bringing her home and her to stop breathing during the night and not having a monitor to let us know that.

Nina was born at 37 weeks and 3 days.

Gracious

To clear up any confusion: It is pronounced Nigh-na. It is a family name on the Steve's side. I looked it up and everywhere the pronunciation can be either Nee-na or Nigh-na, it depends on where you are from. The Hebrew name Nina, is similar to Hannah, which means gracious.

Update:
An upper GI has been ordered for today. It should happen this morning, but we won't know what time until this morning. Also, the reflux medicine she was put on wasn't quite working, so she was put on a stronger one, Prevacid. I'm hoping this is working, especially since Sunday she was eating around 40 mL, and at 2 am this morning she ate 100 mL.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese yesterday for dinner. Rebecca had a very fun time. Thanks Bebe!

Yes it is 4am, I had to eat a snack and now I'm off to bed.

Layouts with Scraptivity's April Kit!

That April kit is amazing and has such awesome things that come with it for some great techniques. In this first layout you can see the Tim Holtz Film Strip Ribbon that I used.

On this second layout you can see the slides that come in it and the technique of using distress inks to color your pictures. I colored the leaves and trees in the picture. I LOVE how this layout turned out.

Sweet Nina

Here is our Sweet Nina. She likes to sleep. She doesn't cry much. She is using most of her energy to eat. She was forgetting to breathe while she slept, but she has stopped doing that now. She has a hard time with coordinating sucking, swallowing, and breathing. She chokes during her feeding and she holds her breathe. Her heart rate drops and around her mouth turns ashen color and her oxygen level in her blood drops. Sometimes not all three things happen, sometimes only two of three. She gets really limp when it happens. She has some jaundice, but it is at an okay level, so we don't have to put her under the lights. Her pediatrician has started her on Zantac for acid reflux and we tilt her "bed" up slightly so that her head is a little more elevated. So as my mom likes to say, she didn't have enough time cooking on the inside, and it takes longer to cook on the outside. Rebecca got to see her through the window, since kids aren't allowed in the Intensive Care Nursery (ICN).

Baby Nina has arrived

Monday at 8:13 pm baby Nina was born.
7 lbs. 2 oz.
20 in. long

I have been discharged home. She is having problems with oxygen levels and is in Intensive Care Nursery.

Going to the Hospital

Here comes Nina or Nyna (which spelling?)

Spring Fling Challenge #4

On Scraptivity! we are having a Spring Fling challenge leading up to our National Scrapbooking Day Crop. I'm the hostess of challenge #4 and the challenge is to create your own paper flowers for your project.

Here is my DPL:

Here are some examples of ideas of how to make your own paper flowers to get your inspired:

http://taylorstamped.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-top-punch-flower-tutorial.html

http://wendysmedley.typepad.com/possibilities/2009/11/week-of-gratitude-bouquet.html

http://www.papercraftcentral.com/how-to-make-paper-flowers.html

http://sundayldesigns.com/how-to-make-wet-crumpled-paper-flowers/