Gallbladder removed. Day surgery apparently.
Pictures of organs removed from refrigerator. Not appeasing.
Thursday April 17th, 2008
Friday May 18th, 2007
Fixed
Hailey’s arm is fixed again. She couldn’t wait to go jump on the trampoline.
Monday April 23rd, 2007
Broken
Hailey’s arm is fractured in two places because of an accident at school.
Wednesday November 15th, 2006
Ms. Natasha Spots
July 17, 1995 – November 14, 2006
Friday May 12th, 2006
No Tubes, No Wires, No Hospitals
Katie is finally at home. She sleeps a lot. We have her downstairs with us, but you would never know it. Every three hours she wakes up and we feed her. Then she goes back to sleep.
Hailey got to see Katie for the first time today. She was very excited. Brianna went to get Hailey at school. It was nap time and her teacher was having a hard time getting Hailey to wake up. Hailey does not like to wake up. Brianna whispered, “guess who’s home?” Hailey jumped up ready to go. She wouldn’t take off her shoes for nap time. She wanted to be ready to go. Hailey has been doing soft touches on her baby every since. She alternates between calling her baby and sister.
Hailey is our hand-washing police. We put her in charge of making sure every visitor that comes to see Katie washes their hands. She is doing a terrific job.
Katie’s doctor told us that she was happy for us and very few parents act as excited about taking their child home as Brianna did. Yesterday, when the doctor told Brianna, on the phone, that we could possible take Katie home today. Brianna was quiet. The doctor said, hello, are you there? Brianna stopped crying and said, I love you; this is the best Mother’s Day present ever.
Thursday May 11th, 2006
Day 10 in NICU
Katie is making good progress. Since removing her feeding tube, she has nippled enough at each feeding to be ready to come home. She is scheduled for a car seat study and a hearing test tomorrow. Then we should be on our way home.
The grandma’s dropped off the car seat this evening so the study can get started at any time. For this test, they will buckle Katie into her car seat and leave her for 30 minutes. To pass this test she should have no incidents of forgetting to breath or having her heart slow or stop. If you remember from Hailey this is called apnea and bradycardia (As and Bs). In her short existence, Katie has had only two incidents and both were minor and self-correcting. I do not expect her to have any issues that will keep her from coming home.
Wooohoo
Brianna just got a phone call from Katie’s doctor. If Katie takes all of her bottles tonight we can take her home tomorrow.
Wednesday May 10th, 2006
Day 9 in NICU
Sometime during the night Katie decided that she no longer wanted the feeding tube in her nose. Since then she has been making good progress nippling her food. As of this evening there were no orders to put the tube back.
Tuesday May 9th, 2006
Day 8 in NICU
Katie is staying warm and is up to 4 lbs. 11 oz. Her milk is being fortified to increase calorie content. Her doctor would like to see her gain 1 oz a day. Last night she was up 2/3 oz.
She didn’t eat any of her 11:00 a.m. feeding for me. She ate her 8:00 p.m. feeding really fast, probably because her grandma feed her. It seems like we are still a little ways off from removing the feeding tube. To remove the tube, Katie will have to eat all of her feedings from the bottle. Right now she is skipping too many.
Katie made plenty of dirty diapers for mom to change. As soon as Brianna would get a clean diaper on Katie would make it dirty again and Brianna would have to start over.
Monday May 8th, 2006
Day 7 in NICU
NICU one week later and Katie is doing well. She is trying to get all of her food from a bottle but there always seems to be 7 or 8 ml left after feeding. She is only eating 40 ml per feeding so they have to put the remainder down the tube in her nose.
Katie’s only mild setback is that she has been unable to keep her body temperature up. She is hovering around 96-97°F. They have begun fortifieing Katie’s milk to be sure that she gets enough caleries. This may help her get her temperature up. They have moved her from the window because it was a little drafty over there. Katie is under enough blankets for a trip to Poland in the winter. The little bundle in her isolette is more blanket than baby.
Sunday May 7th, 2006
Day 6 in NICU
Today was a great day for little Katie. Her feedings are up to 40 ml and her IV bag has been removed. The IV needle is still in her head but it is only draining and should be removed soon.
Katie has started gaining weight and has been moved into an open crib in a different bay. This is the bay Hailey was discharged from. Hopefully, we will have the whole family home soon.
Day 5 in NICU
Today was a good day for Katie. Her feedings were up and her IV suppliments were down. We need to get her off the yellow bag of fluids and then the IV can come out.
They needed to start a new IV in Katie’s head at the 2:30 p.m. feeding. While I was feeding her, the IV in her head popped out.
Last night’s billyruben level was again past 10. They told us that she may need to go back under the phototherapy light. Luckily, her billyruben level was headed down again when they pulled blood for the 4:00 p.m. labs.
Katie has been loosing weight since she was born and is now down to 4 pounds and 8 ounces. This is normal for a newborn and hopefully her weight will start picking up again.
We bought two premie sized sleeper outfits for Katie to wear. Both are good for up to 5 pounds. Both outfits are huge on little Katie.
Friday May 5th, 2006
Day 4 in NICU
Day 4 was a day of mostly happy news. When we first arrived Brianna was disappointed to see that they had placed an IV into Katie’s head. They had done this with Hailey and it took almost 2 years for the hair to grow back from where they shaved it. The IV in the head normally lasts longer because it is moved less. I hope this is the last IV they will need to start.
I was able to cheer her up when I noticed that they had removed the nasal cannula. At 6:00 pm yesterday they took Katie off her nasal cannula. She has breathed all night and all morning on her own.
Katie has had two incidents where she has lowered her heart and respiratory rates allowing her blood oxygen levels to drop, in both cases she has recovered on her own.
Katie’s billyruben levels had peaked and had fell to 9.2 at the last test.
They have raised Katie’s feeding rate to 20 ml up from 15 ml per feeding. She did not do well with bottle feedings through the night so the nurses had to use the feeding tube that is now in her nose. Katie did not do the bottle well for the 11:30 a.m. or 2:30 p.m. feedings.
When we arrived for the 2:30 p.m. feeding, we were happy to find out that Katie had been taken off of the phototherapy light. She is now over jaundice.
We met with her doctor before leaving at 2:30 p.m. Katie needs to learn to coordinate suck-swallow-breath and then she can put on some weight. Then we can start thinking about going home.
At the 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. feedings Katie took all of her feedings from her bottle in less than 10 minutes.
Thursday May 4th, 2006
Day 3 in NICU
We made it up to NICU for the first two feedings. Brianna feed Katie at 8:30 a.m. and I feed her at 11:30 a.m. At 8:30 we learned that her billyrubin (jaundice indicator) had risen from an 8 to a 10. That means more time under the light.
At 11:30 a.m. I got to change her diaper. Wouldn’t you know that it was her first poopy diaper.
We stayed to do the 2:30 p.m. feeding but a new baby was being admitted to the bay so we were forced out.
Wednesday May 3rd, 2006
Pictures at Flickr
I am uploading all the pictures from Katie’s birth and stay at NICU into this photo set at flickr.
Day 2.5 in NICU
Brianna called to talk to Katie’s nurse this evening and learned some good and some less good news.
The good news, Katie is now on a nasal cannula instead of the CPAP and has had her first bottle without issue.
The bad news, Katie has lost 4 ounces since yesterday. This is not a grave concern and could be due to being dehydrated from the photo-therapy lights. We will learn more tomorrow morning.
Day 2 in NICU
Katie has been doing well on the CPAP machine and the amount of assistance as well as the amount of additional oxygen added has been turned down. There is hope that the CPAP apparatus can be removed entirely, and bottle feedings started by this afternoon.
A minor, but expected, setback was encountered today when we first arrived. Katie was very orange and we learned from her nurse that she had jaundice and would be put on the photo-therapy lights by the time we returned after lunch.
Katie has been feed through her IV as well as through a feeding tube that extends to her stomach. For the most part she has been digesting all of the food that was administered through her tube.
She has been sleeping every time that we have visited her. We try our best not to disturb her. When she is sleeping her respiratory rate, and heartbeat is very regular. We like to see that.
Tuesday May 2nd, 2006
Day One in NICU
Tuesday marked the end of Katie’s first day in NICU. She has had to endure poking, prodding, and an attachment of velcro just under her nose to accept the CPAP hardware.
Katie breathing requires a bit of effort. With each breath she sounds as if she is crying very softly. They refer to this as ‘singing’ or ‘grunting’ and is not a desired trait. The CPAP machine makes the grunting go away. The grunting is probably due to some residual fluid in her lungs because she was born before her full term. Her sister had similar issues but required more extensive care because she was born sooner. The CPAP helps her breath. The air’s oxygen content has been enriched slightly.
She is unable to accept a bottle due to the conflicts with the hardware and the nipple. She is sucking madly on a pacifier. If the CPAP hardware was off she would probably go to town on a bottle.
Katherine Conoley Jones
Presenting Katherine Conoley Jones. Born on May 1, 2006 at 13:11. She weighs 4lbs and 13 oz and is almost 18 inches long. She was born a bit early at 34 weeks and 1 day but is doing fine in NICU.
Monday May 1st, 2006
Birth
We put Hailey to bed and settled to sleep around ten. I was dead tired and fell fast asleep. At midnight, Brianna woke me. I jumped from bed and into my pants before I knew what was going on. She thought her water had broke. I finished getting dressed and put on my shoes.
Brianna called her mom and explained that her water had broke. She then called after-hours so they could tell her to go to the hospital.
To this point things had been going almost smoothly for us. Brianna had been having contractions for the past two weeks, but the baby has been fine. We have sonograms, stress tests, and OB checks to prove it. I have joked about wanting a May 1st baby (May 1st is a holiday, Christmas is a holiday, it is also past 34 weeks, a milestone we have been trying very hard to meet.), but I don’t expect one. Just this afternoon at noon Brianna had a special Sunday OB check and everything looked normal. Dr. Brinkman said nothing would happen and we were safe for at least 12 hours.
The nurse at after-hours told Brianna to come on in. We activated our well thought out plan and called Rachael to come stay with Hailey while we ran up to the hospital. I had joked with Rachael that she wouldn’t hear her phone when I called. I even joked that I would be calling on Sunday night so to be ready. Rachael kept her phone by her bed, she uses it as an alarm clock. She would certainly hear our summons.
One round of rings was dispatched to Rachael’s voice mail. A second and a third round found a similar fate. Time for the nonexistent backup-plan.
Brianna called Eric. She told him to come to the house to watch Hailey. She never asked what he was doing or if he could. She only said that he should come over now. Eric is a night owl, there was never a chance that he would be sleeping. Fifteen minutes later Eric came speeding onto our street. Tires screeching, he pulled around and into the front of our house.
We left Eric in his untied shoes to stay with Hailey. Hailey was asleep upstairs. She didn’t know we were gone. We only hopped she would stay asleep until morning.
My mom called Sunday afternoon to check on Brianna’s status. Brianna had just received her Sunday special checkup and felt fine. We told my mom nothing was going to happen today. It was safe to catch up on sleep, it was safe to take a sleeping pill to help. This is the second time we have mislead her and told her it was safe to take a sleeping pill when it wasn’t.
On the way to the hospital we called my mom and asked her to come bye and pick up Hailey. This was part of the original plan. Mom doesn’t like hospitals so she would keep Hailey until we were done. Sadly, she was not able to drive over right away and set about trying to wake up enough to drive through the winding country roads to our house.
We got to the hospital 28 minutes after we left the house. Traffic, police, and other obstacles were nonexistent. I parked the car in the garage and we entered through the Emergency Room. Brianna didn’t want a wheelchair, she wanted to walk to Labor and Delivery on the second floor. The lady at the Emergency Room admission desk saw us and said, Do you know where your going? Second floor right, we said? Right she said.
The trip from the Emergency Room to Labor and Delivery was straight forward three years ago, but the path is under major reconstruction now, we detoured through aisles, break rooms, and make-shift passages before finally coming to the dead-end hallway that housed admissions. This admission seemed much easier to me than the last one three years ago. We only needed Brianna’s ID and insurance card before being sent to room 253.
Dr. Brinkman arrived shortly after one. She examined Brianna and told us some unexpected news. Brianna had indeed broken her water, but that doesn’t mean that she has to delivery the baby. Brianna would be hooked up to the monitors but no one would be surprised if she stayed for 48 hours of observations and then went home.
Dr. Brinkman went back home, Brianna laid in the bed with the monitors attached. We all waited. I stayed up and read a book on my laptop. Brianna was having irregular contractions. Around three or four they became more painful. Brianna got some medication to help limit the pain. The medication eased the pain but would not last long.
Dr. Brinkman returned for a checkup around eight. Brianna had been having irregular contractions throughout the night. The monitor wasn’t doing a good job of picking up on their intensity. Dr. Brinkman gave Brianna some more unexpected news. All those contractions had dilated her to a four. We going to have a baby after all.
We had been hoping to get this pregnancy to 34 weeks. Sunday was 34 weeks. Monday was 34 weeks and one day. Everything, we thought, would be fine if we made it to 34 weeks. Somehow, Brianna and I missed the part of the discussions about 34 weeks being a premature birth. We were not expecting, and not ready for, the news that the baby would still need to go upstairs.
Brianna started her epidural and was feeling no pain. She was started on pitocin to make her contractions more regular. A different type of probe was used to determine the intensity of her contractions.
Around 12 or 12:30 Dr. Brinkman return to inform Brianna that she had dilated to a 10 or +1 and it was time to wake up and push. Brianna pushed hard for the next hour until finally giving birth at 13:11. Dr. Brinkman clamped off the umbilical cord and handed me scissors to cut through it. It felt much different than I expected.
The crew from the NICU upstairs cleaned the baby and gave her to mom for a short stay on her chest. Somehow I managed to find my camera and start taking pictures.
I went upstairs with the NICU crew and Katherine. We decided on the name Katherine a few seconds after the birth.
I came back downstairs to our empty room. Brianna was calling everyone she know to tell them the news. Once again we were looking at going home while our baby stayed in the hospital.