One Month Old!!!!!

Day 31

Emma has reached a great milestone today.  She is one month old and going strong!! 

Over the last couple days, she was generally improving with her various levels (her sugars are back down, sodium is back up, urine output is back up, etc.) but she was desaturating quite a lot and she had to be kept on very high levels of oxygen.  The doctors ordered an echocardiogram this morning to see if she had a hole that opened up in her heart.  She had echocardiograms done right after birth and then about a week after birth, since it is possible for the hole to re-open even if it's not present right at birth.  This is extremely common in preemies but Emma has never had one - the doctors were actually shocked that she never had one because of how common it is.  But, they thought this may be the reason for all the de-satting, since the pressure settings on the vent have stayed low and it was just the amount of oxygen she needed that has been increasing. 

When we talked to Emma's primary doctor this morning, she believed that Emma's issue is just "mechanical" since she really has no other symptoms of being sick - basically the equipment she has is not ideally suited for her, specifically her ventilator tube is too small.  Last week, the size of her tube was increased and she started doing much better on it.  But when she was extubated and then reintubated, they went back to the smaller tube since she was having some swelling in her throat and they thought the bigger size was still too big.  Well, now that Emma has grown quite a bit over the last week, the doctor wants to try going back to the bigger tube to see if that will help with the de-satting, as long as the echocardiogram was normal. 

We talked to the doctors tonight and the echocardiogram was in fact normal and showed no holes in her heart.  Therefore, Emma is getting reintubated tonight with the bigger ventilator tube and hopefully this will help all the de-satting.  She just had it done late this evening so we'll see tomorrow how well it's working out.

Emma also gained another 30 grams over the last two nights and is now up to 750 grams!!! 

When we talked to the doctors, they still expressed that even though all the de-satting may be a minor setback, overall Emma is still doing very very well.  Even the doctor called her a "tough cookie"!  And we could not agree more - she has proven everyone wrong about how well she would do and we are just so proud of her.  Even though Mom and Dad have quite a few more gray hairs than before, we would not change a thing.  We are so blessed to have a beautiful, strong, and very feisty daughter and we are excited to watch her continue to grow and develop.  We love you, Emma!!  Happy one month birthday!!! 

Emma is wide awake when she's on her back...

Getting herself tangled up in her measuring tape...

Mmmmm... fingers..... yum!! 

Emma was given a gorgeous blanket from our friends Brigid & Tom.  We cannot wait until she's big enough to be wrapped up in it!  She's not yet able to regulate her body temperature, so for now we'll show it off and use it to keep the light out of her isolette so she can sleep.

Looks like it's working!