Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Home At Last...

...well, not quite yet, but very soon. The plan is to pack up Livy and all of our belongings...and leave this hospital today. Today marks 3 weeks from the day of her surgery and we cannot wait to get home. From a cardiac standpoint, everything looks great and she is recovering nicely. Unfortunately, we had some hiccups along the way and we are now working on eating.

Basically, because Olivia was intubated for 10 days, she needed to be on Fentanyl and Ativan longer than anticipated. When she was extubated, she began withdrawing from the meds and was eventually placed on morphine to help with weaning. Long story short, she became very constipated and stopped eating. She was placed on an NG tube and there was talk of her coming home on tube feeds. After quite a bit of discussion, we came to the consensus that we would see how well she could feed without the tube and just monitor her weight gain for the next couple of weeks. If she doesn't eat well enough and starts to lose weight, then we will have to re-visit the NG tube. For now, her coordination is poor and we struggle to get 1 to 2oz of 27-cal formula in her belly every 3 hours. We are working with Occupational Therapy to rectify this. Sounds like it may be a slow process, but at least we can get our girl home and work from there.

As for our regular baby updates, Makenna and Lauren are doing very very well. Lauren just loves to eat and eat and eat. She will eat an entire container of Gerber 1sts, while Makenna re-eats the same bite over and over again. In terms of chattiness, Makenna won't stop talking. She gets really loud and excited and makes all sorts of crazy noises. Lauren is much more subdued and quiet. She smiles all day long and rarely fusses. Olivia has actually started smiling a lot and has given me a few little coos here and there. All three are ridiculously happy babies. I'd say Makenna is the most temperamental of the three, but we really have it pretty good being that they are so content most of the time.

Not much else to report at the moment. I am currently awaiting a warm day so that we can pack up the girls and head to the zoo. I know they won't care too much, but Paul and I will love it, and they will enjoy the fresh air. So if this awful Ohio weather will cooperate, we will be "zooing" shortly.

Two big anniversaries coming up: first is the one year anniversary of the day we found out I was pregnant (May 1, 2008). Hands down the best day of my life. And on April 23rd Paul and I are celebrating our 5 year anniversary. Actually, I have no idea when we are actually celebrating that anniversary, but the anniversary itself happens to fall on April 23rd.

Thanks to everyone for your support. We are so happy to be heading home!!!

4 comments:

Karie J. Boyd said...

So glad to see you are doing well. I think of you all often.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the update I keep checking in on you guys. I'm so happy Olivia will be going home soon! You know Arianna always had a hard time with feeding as an infant...actually she still does to this day. Just keep working with her OT cause I know ours was a life savor.

I'm so glad to hear the girls are growing up and becoming little chatterboxes!

Take care,
Vanessa

Mary said...

So glad to hear an update. Your family is always in my thoughts and prayers. Way to go Livy, I'll be praying that you feeding go well and no feeding tubes.

Mary w/Quads from BBC

Anonymous said...

Just checking in for a recent update on your girls. Hope all is well! Thinking/praying for your family!
-Trisha (2WW)

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