March in April

This blog is the best place I could think of to let everyone know of a very special event that will occur on Saturday, April 27 in RTP.  Similar to the Komen walk which raises money for breast cancer research, the March of Dimes sponsors many walks around the country.  The one for the Triangle area of North Carolina is at 10am on Saturday, April 27.  It starts at 4309 Emperor Boulevard in Durham.  Registration is at 8:30 that morning. 

I've set a modest goal of raising $100 $400 (I had to raise it due to a couple of very generous donations) for this event and I've created a page where you could donate to help me reach my goal.  The link for my page is here.

If you don't want to donate directly to help me raise my goal, that's fine, but please don't forget the March of Dimes when you're doing your charitiable donations each year.  It's a wonderful organization that does great work to help babies like Emma who are born prematurely.  Without donations they wouldn't be able to help these children.  Emma gives the March of Dimes a thumbs up in her very recent picture above.

AAAAAAAANNNNNNNDDDDD Home

Emma finally made it home yesterday evening.  We pulled out of the hospital around 5:30.  Her favorite nurse, who happened to be there when she was born and has been there with her every time she works, was the nurse who got to discharge her, so that was a great thing.  I'm sure Lynette will miss lil Emma, but she's so happy for her that she's big and strong enough to come home.

Emma's big sister Eden was SO excited to see her.  She keeps saying "I want to see Emma!!"

Thanks again to everyone who provided support and prayers during this difficult time.  I will continue to keep you updated as often as I can through this blog.  God bless y'all!!

Saturday: Update

Well, it turns out that today was not the day for Emma to come home.  She just hasn't been consistent with her feeds and her weight gain recently, so they did not feel comfortable sending her home.  Their best guess at this point is a few more days.  She must be enjoying her time in Chapel Hill.  As her aunt Jennifer said, she just doesn't want to leave the southern part of heaven.  And really, who can blame her?  So that's where things stand right now.  She continues to do well, just not quite well enough for them to feel 100% comfortable releasing her.  Keep the prayers coming that she can come home soon!

Saturday

Well, the news finally came down this week.  Emma is coming home on Saturday!  Everyone who has prayed for her, there is absolutely no way possible that you could ever be re-paid.  Family, friends, strangers...Emma's had quite a large number of people praying for her and rooting for her.  All of it seems to have worked.  A great big Thank You goes out to each and every one of you.  I know the posting has been sparse recently on here, and it will probably continue to be after she comes home.  But I'll try to post something every now and then just so all of you can keep up with her progress and how she's doing.

Again, thank y'all so very much.  Emma thanks you as well.

Happy Due Day!!

Today Emma officially reached the milestone of 40 weeks gestational age, meaning today is her official due date.  So happy Due Day to the big girl!  She's growing nicely still.  I realize that it has been a while since I last updated this blog, and I apologize to everyone for that.  Sometimes you just have to step away for a while.  Not only that, but like I mentioned before there just isn't a development every day like there was in the beginning.

Emma is now on the absolute lowest amount of oxygen they can have her on.  The next step would be to remove her from it completely.  They still don't know when they're going to try that.  The reasoning behind that is because they still want her to develop the ability to take 100% of her feeds from a bottle as opposed to anything from the feeding tube.  She was doing very well last week, taking everything, or nearly everything for a few days straight.  Then she developed thrush, which is a very common infection in all babies, not just preemies.  This made it painful for her to eat because there was an infection in her throat.  So they treated that and are continuing to treat it still and each day she gets back to taking more and more of her feeds from a bottle.  So hopefully she will continue that trend as well.

Once she is taking all of her feeds from a bottle they will contemplate what to do with the oxygen.  The main thing they're concerned with right now is the feeding.  They're not nearly as concerned about the breathing at this point.  As I stated above, she is on the absolute lowest level of oxygen she can get.  But some babies have a very hard time coming completely off of it, and they just don't want to push her anymore than they already are.

Another big development for Emma is the fact that she's closing in on 5 pounds.  She's not there yet, but she's very close.  She was at 4 pounds 12.8 ounces last night when they weighed her close to 11pm.  Not being able to eat from a bottle has actually HELPED her gain weight.  It seems counter intuitive, but she is not burning any calories eating if she's getting all of it through her feeding tube.  They only let her eat from a bottle for 30 minutes each time, and if she hasn't finished her feed by that time they put the rest of it in her feeding tube.  The reasoning behind that is she burns more calories than she takes in after that point.  So by not taking anything at all from a bottle for a few days, she didn't burn as many calories.  And as you all know, the more calories you take in, the more weight you gain.

This whole experience has gone much differently than anyone imagined.  Everyone figured Emma would be born now, or sometime around now.  Instead she decided she was ready 10 weeks and 1 day early.  She's been such a fighter up to this point, growing more and more and just inspiring so many people.  Happy Due Day to that beautiful little girl!!  There are so many people praying for you Emma.  To those of you who have reached out to me recently inquiring as to how she is doing, thank you very much.  I am sorry that I haven't kept the blog as updated as I was in the beginning.  But know that your words of encouragement and well wishes are well received.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to make a very exciting post here.  I'm not sure when that's coming, but hopefully soon.  I hope y'all have a great night!!

Inching Closer

Emma has had a pretty big week.  She officially blew past the 4 pound barrier, going from just under 4 pounds one night to 4 pounds 3 ounces the next.  She's still tolerating all of her feedings as well, which are now up to 33ml every 3 hours.  When she's awake and will take it, they are giving her a bottle.  They do want her to feed completely from a bottle, obviously because when she comes home she will no longer have a feeding tube.  So she has to be completely on bottles before she can come home.  She's hit or miss with those right now.  She's taking about 30% of her feeds through a bottle right now.  So she still has a long way to go before they'll even begin the discussion about her coming home, but she's making progress.

Another big development recently, today in fact, was the fact that they moved her out of her isolette and into a bassinet.  They'd previously told us that around 3 and a half pounds they try to put them into a bassinet or a crib, but they also have to have one available.  So once she hit the 4 pound mark, they went and found one and put her in it today.  She has to hold her temperature on her own completely now, and if she doesn't they'll have to put her back into the isolette.  But so far, so good.

Her breathing is still the same as it has been recently.  She's apparently reached the minimum level for her oxygen that she can tolerate at this point, as they tried a couple times to go below that and she didn't do very well.  So they're not going to push her any harder than she will let them.  But she's still on a much lower level than she was even a week ago, so everyone is definitely encouraged by her progress there.  She's not there yet, but she's getting there.

Emma turned 8 weeks old yesterday, and she is 38 weeks gestational age today.  She's been in the NICU now for 57 days.  She's received some incredible care from some of the most amazing people anyone could ever have the pleasure of meeting.  Hopefully she will continue improving and making good progress towards coming home at some point in the near future.  I know this, she's getting cuter each and every day!!  She's a lot like her big sister in that way.  But she's doing great.  Just please keep the prayers coming that she continues to improve!

Growing Steadily

So apparently, it's been a few days since I last wrote anything on Emma's progress.  I know when I started this blog I was writing every day, or almost every day at least.  But things were changing so much from day to day at that point.  Things aren't changing as much each day anymore, which is why I've gone to the ~2 times a week approach to the blog.  But in the last few days, there have been a number of positive developments for little Emma.

First of all, they have been able to reduce her air flow.  She's now back on the "low flow" nasal cannula.  She's a few steps away from being completely off of it.  Now the last time they had her this low, she had a setback and had to be put all the way back onto the high flow, but that was a few weeks ago.  She's grown and developed a good amount since that time, so hopefully this time she will continue improving every day until they're able to take her off of it completely.

Next, she has grown a good amount.  She had a little growth spurt at the end of last week, gaining 3 ounces one day and another ounce the next.  As of Saturday night (as I haven't heard what her weight was when they weighed her last night yet), she was 3 pounds, 14 ounces.  She's closing in on the next milestone, the 4 pound mark.  She's now getting 32ml of milk every 3 hours as well, which is over an ounce each feeding.  She's definitely come a long way there, from her initial feeds of 1ml 8 times a day.  It's crazy to think just how far she's come.  She's got a long way to go, but not nearly as far as when she started.

They did give her another 3 day dose of the diuretic last week.  We haven't heard anything about another regimen this week, but if they feel she needs it they will give it to her I'm sure.  Obviously we're hoping they don't have to, but if they do, they do. 

So there's the update.  See, if I wrote something every day at this point, the updates would be 2 lines each!  So it's just easier for me to do it less frequently.  I appreciate all the concern and prayers Emma gets, though.  She's getting closer to being able to come home.  We don't have a time frame yet, but she's definitely closer now than she was even 2 weeks ago.  Once we hear something about that I will definitely post that and share it with everyone.