1 month & no repreive

Its been exactly 1 month that the girls have been here. Born Thursday March 8th...Therefore their "chronological age" is 1 month, but their In "adjusted" age terms, they are still 0...not even born. "Real" age vs "adjusted age" is a very interesting concept. Here is the definition from the March of Dimes website:

The premature infant: How old is my baby?

Babies who are born prematurely often have two ages:

• Chronological age is the age of the baby from the day of birth—the number of days, weeks or years old the baby is.
• Adjusted age is the age of the baby based on his due date. Health care providers may use this age when they evaluate the baby's growth and development. So, if a baby is 6 months old, but was born two months early, his adjusted age is 4 months.

Their original due date was May 24th.....a long 7 weeks from now.  Therefore, despite being a month old, they still are are -7 weeks "adjusted".....

Sara stayed home today, as she has down down with my cold/strep; She is not pleased to away from the girls, but knows its not good to be in the NICU with a potential sickness. I made it down to catch the tail end of the rounds for Ashlyn and Hanna.

The news in the NICU is not particularly good, which is a nice way of saying that its bad. We'll drop right in:

Ashlyn hammered on 6 meds

Ashlyn:

Is having problems......The surgery on Tuesday went well, and her recovery was looking good until last night. Apparently overnight, she started deteriorating, and is now facing some serious new challenges in her recovery from her PDA surgery.

She had some unfavorable xrays this morning which show fluid accumulating in her lungs...The thought is that this is from an infection. Bad bad bad......They are starting anti-biotics now as a precaution, and are expecting test results back within an hour or two.

Further analysis this morning indicates a very high CPG reading (not sure what that even means) of around 5.8 with a "normal" range of 0-1....off the charts.

The doctor's initially hypothesis is that she has some sort of bronchial infection, maybe pneumonia. I asked if it could be from me or Sara and she likely not; Anytime they re-introduce a breathing tube, the risk of infection is fairly high. As a classic doctor she says "the good news is an infection is fully treatable." 




Ashlyn-Bad O2 of 39 and high BP


If the fluid continues to accumulate, they are talking about re-introducing a chest tube.

Poor girl is getting so hammered.....She is getting several blood draws done every few hours, and looks very unhappy. They have increased her Fentanyl and is on about 6 meds at this point. It feels like the poor thing is a human lab experiment. Its really hard to see.

Bottom line: She's sick, alot sicker than she was yesterday and in critical condition; Once again she's fighting for her life.

The level of attention she is getting and the looks on the faces of the doctors that are treating her tell the story. She was in a similarly precarious spot a few weeks ago, related to her chylothorax. Now she's in the same spot, with new issues. If she makes it out of the NICU it will be a miracle.

Hanna:

Our rockstar finally got some bad news....I figured it was only a matter of time;

Her echo revealed a "moderate to severe" PDA.....

No surprise really; We knew she had a "loud" murmur, and knew that since she is an identical twin and that her sister Ashlyn had one, that this was a distinct possibility. However, it still sucks.

She is not showing any distress, and actually, is doing really well. She is actually is growing like a weed and all the way to 3 1/2 lbs now! Everything she is doing is good.

It's one of those "too much information" moments. Since she is growing so well, and all her stats look great, no one is eager to do anything about the PDA. Around 80% of PDA's close on their own; It might take weeks, months even a few years; I talked with my buddy Tim today, who told me his son had a PDA and it eventually closed. It took almost 2 years.

Not much else to say on Hanna. It sucks to hear that she has a big PDA. It's good to see that she continues to well.

That's it for today...will update as events warrant over the next day or two.

For now all, as my friend Becca says, all we can do "wait and see".

Please continue to send your thought and prayers for our little girls, particularly Ashlyn. Thanks for all the support.