Why?

Today was a very difficult day - lots of complications that were all connected to each other. One thing made another thing worse which created another issue which caused another difficulty and so on and so on. We learned a lot about avoiding some problems in the future hopefully, but it was very overwhelming. Thank you for all the prayers you all have been sending up. My precious husband left work early to help me, which was totally unexpected and a total blessing. The NICU is almost at maximum capacity, and Dava (our nurse for the day) had 4 babies, 2 of whom were going home. This sounds good, but it's VERY time-consuming to discharge a baby, much less 2. Which means she didn't really have time to help me with anything. Russell and I did the dressing change today without nurse supervision - bravo, I must say!

A few weeks ago, I blogged that although I don't usually ask God why, I have been doing so about Emma. I've thought about this a lot. In the last few weeks, I may have come up with a few answers. One is education - for doctors, nurses, residents. Our nurse last Sunday told us that our daughter's wound is the talk of all the nurses, even ones who have never even had her before. Another nurse verified that yesterday, and apparently they're all so happy that the wound care team got involved. Some of the night nurses have come to see Emma's wound when her personal nurse changes the dressing. Lots of nurses and doctors have learned about the Press 'N Seal trick for her skin. Dr. Troup himself has a much greater appreciation for the wound care team and what they can do. So I really think Emma has opened people's eyes to some better care possibilities. That's generally how medicine progresses - SOMEBODY has to be the guinea pig. So now my question is...why MY daughter? Still don't have an answer to that one...and probably won't. The infectious disease doctors, NICU doctors, and wound care team are very pleased that we've been taking daily pictures of the wound in order to keep track of its progress. They've all said that that might be a good idea for some other patients, too.

Emma's fluid still isn't draining off her brain like the doctor hoped. The result is that we're feeding her upright and on her back, which is really hard because (1) her head is big and rolls around a lot and (2) she WANTS to roll her head around a lot because this is a whole new experience. Burping her on my shoulder is hard, too, because of the size of her head. The other result of slow draining is having her sleep on an incline in the bed. This is hard because she is a very mobile sleeper and just slides right on down that incline. We brought a sleep positioner from home, and we'll just see how that works. The incline thing is going to be trial and error, I believe. Another nurse here who is PHENOMENAL (she's come to our rescue one time in the past) brought us a big mattress-sized wedge to go under her bed, too. Surely one of those options will work. Here's Emma earlier in the day in the perfect position at the top of her incline:



Here she is an hour and a half later:



We've got MAJOR problems with Emma's food...it's causing all sorts of digestive problems. We just can't get it right, and you have to give her digestive system a certain amount of time to get used to a particular formula before you change it again. Luckily, our pediatrician happened to come in today to do a circumcision on another NICU baby (thank goodness we don't have to deal with THAT), and she has much more formula knowledge than NICU doctors and nurses. There's a slight chance Emma could have a milk protein allergy, but it's just too soon to tell because there are other factors to consider, like antibiotics (which will end on Saturday) and eating and digesting on her tummy. The allergy is unlikely because we'd probably be seeing much more extreme symptoms than we're seeing now. All these poopoo problems are causing diaper rash, too.

When we got back to the hospital tonight, Supernurse Dana (not to be confused with Dava) was rocking Emma. We thought she was rocking her because Emma was a little fussy. Nope. Just rocking her because she loves her. And when we were ready to feed Emma, Dana didn't want to give her up. After Emma's surgery on Tuesday, Dana came in Tuesday night (even though she wasn't taking care of Emma that night) and came straight to check on her before she did anything else. I'll say it again about the nurses - we have kissed a lot of frogs and have finally gotten some princes!

Emma weighs 10 pounds, 6 ounces. Check out the fat wrist - we really shouldn't put rubber bands on our baby :)