Thursday night/Friday morning

Thursday evening
Faith's been struggling a little since the surgery. Her heartrate has been very high (an indication that she's uncomfortable) and she's had a lot of gunk in her lungs that she just hasn't been able to shake.

Faith's overnight nurse was Laurie, she was very nice and made sure she told me everything that was happening; I think she could tell I was worried. When she took Faith's temperature around 11, Faith had a fever. She was really pale, her tummy was red, and she had low blood pressure again, too. Laurie called one of the docs, who said that she should run a lab workup to rule out infection, and give her a bolus of fluids to help bring her blood pressure back up.


Around 11:30, a couple of surgeons came in to check on her. One of them was Dr. Bruny, who hadn't seen Faith yet, but she was the surgeon we met with before Faith was born. The bolus helped Faith's blood pressure, and Dr. Bruny said that her lungs sounded good. She explained that the fast heart rate, temperature, and red belly were all just probably a reaction to the surgery, but that they'd keep an eye on her and rule out any infection. Faith's been on antibiotics since she was born, so infection isn't really very likely. Hearing this news helped me go to sleep; I knew I didn't need to worry so much and that everything was still ok.


Friday, November 21
One of Faith's med alarms (to let the nurse know the med is done) went off around 4:00 AM. It's a good thing it did, because I had set my phone alarm to go off at 3 so I could get up and pump, but I totally ignored it and turned it off in my sleep.

While I was pumping, Laurie was in doing Faith's cares, and when I finished she was just getting to changing her diaper, and it was poopy! And it wasn't meconium this time, so it was real poop that actually had to go the whole way through her system! This is such good news, because not only does it mean that there aren't any blockages in her intestines, but it also means that her GI tract is already waking up and doing what it's supposed to do. There are two things the doctors have to wait on before they'll start letting Faith eat: she has to show that her bowels work, and her NG tube (the one that sucks out her stomach) needs to run clear. So she's halfway there, barely 24 hours after surgery! :)

Laurie also let me know that all of Faith's labs came back good, her blood gases are good (I had heard the nurses say yesterday that she was getting acidodic again), her heartrate and blood pressure are good, and her temperature is normal again. So even though she had a little bit of a backslide, she is doing much better now.

Knowing that, I was able to go back to sleep, until my dad came and woke me around 7:30. He came down this morning to donate blood, in case Faith needs a transfusion for any reason while she's here, since they have the same blood type. (Faith's type is A-; when they told me that, my first thought was that she'll have to have Rhogam someday when she's going to have a baby...) I am very glad that my dad was able to donate for her, even though he got back from deployment less than a year ago. I thought it was pretty cool of him to take the time off work to come down and do that, too :)

Faith's nurse today is Sarah again, minus Erica today. Sarah is very nice and easy to talk to, and she does a good job keeping me informed. Faith is starting to wake up a little bit; they're going to stop the paralytic drug today and let her wake up. She's been moving fingers and toes, and arms and legs a little bit, and trying to open her eyes. She just had a dose of morphine to help settle her a little bit, because as she's waking up her heartrate is going up a little bit (and I think I made her mad because I was showing off her belly button to Mary Ann, her nurse from last Friday).

If you look at her eyes in this picture, you can see she's trying to open them

I will post more later!