Lily Day 8

Lily Day 8 is a hard day. They gave her a blood transfusion this afternoon. We hear this is pretty common practice in premies since they don't have the ability yet to replace and reproduce the blood cells they need yet. This morning they also took an ultrasound of Lily's brain. This was to look for any bleeding in her brain (something else that happens often in premies - but is more concerning). The outcome - not as good as we hoped. She did have some bleeding in her brain. Lily's Dr. gave us an explanation of what was happening in Lily's brain and the good and bad outcomes. The best outcome is that the white blood cell's in Lily's brain will clean up the blood clot and all will be well. For obvious reasons - we are hoping and praying and praying some more that this will be the outcome. It's not a quick process and we may not know the direction of the outcome for a week or more. Ah -- to be patient - it's so difficult. Difficult to keep telling myself that it's not my fault - that I couldn't have done anything different to prevent what's happened in this past week - to prevent Lily from being born much much too early. I know these things in my head; but my heart still cries out in sadness for Lily. She is just so tiny. All I can do is pray for God's mercy on her. Please God, perform a miracle in my baby girl; give her strength to grow and to develop and to become a healthy little girl who plays and fights and laughs with Jude.

Echocardiogram

Lily had a great day yesterday (Day 6). Her echocardiogram came out great - no heart murmur. This means the medicine worked and the little open valve outside of her heart has closed. Last evening they switched her from being fed 1 ml of milk every 8 hours to 1 ml of milk every 6 hours. Oh - and Daniel said she pooped last night too. Ah - the wonders of the little things. Praise God for little tiny steps (Lily steps) toward getting stronger. The doctors say that now that her breathing is stable and her heart is stable - they can focus more on getting her digestive track flowing and feeding her more.

I came home yesterday. It is good for my soul to see Jude. He is so full of energy and smiles and laughter. I have missed him dearly. I plan on staying home and resting/recovering today. Tomorrow I will venture out and see my Lily again.

Lily Day 6

Daniel wrote this about Lily yesterday (Tuesday Day 6):
"Lily got switched off the CPAP mask onto the high flow and is breathing great. She has her next echocardiogram today but nurses say they aren't hearing the murmur so we are hopeful.
Doc told us today that the signs say she was low on amniotic fluid and already pretty stressed in the womb. They can tell that by a couple things, the biggest being her size, but also her skin is pretty mottled. Basically since she was stressed in the womb her blood flow was diverted to protect her brain, heart, and lungs. So her skin and intestines didn't get as much time to develop. She needs to catch up on those things. Basically she needs to get eating too so she can get growing. She's lost some weight since birth which is normal but we are hoping to get her up to birth weight in the next couple days. She's been down to 1 lb 3 ounces and now is back up to 1 lb 5.5 ounces. One of my friends said 'she weighs less then a big gulp from 7 eleven."

Lily Day 5

I skipped Lily Day 4 -- (I think my post entitled Day 3 should have been day 4). Ah well - we'll starting counting from here - Day 5. Yesterday was a good day for Lily. They switched her to a high flow air wire (that sits just under her nose). She seems to be really liking the change, since the cpap mask was kind of bulky on her little head. The nurses think her open heart valve could be closing. We'll find out today as she will get another echocardiogram. Oh - and Daniel and I both got to hold her yesterday for a while. So..all in all, a good day. Today (Day 6) -- I will be heading home from the hospital. I'm looking forward to the comforts of home -- and I think it will be good for my soul to see and smile at Jude.

What happened?

a little explanation for those of you who might have missed the beginning of this journey...

On Thursday afternoon, Daniel and I came to the hospital for some routine blood work and urinary tests. My doctors knew I was spilling protein into my urine, but everything else was checking out as normal, even my blood pressure. So they admitted me to the hospital so they could monitor me a little closer. After a blood test that evening - everything became a whirlwind. Doctors were called into the hospital - nurses were trying to explain and comfort us. Turns out I had HELLP Syndrome (a serious condition usually considered a severe form of pre-eclampsia, fatal for both mother and child if left untreated). I encourage you to read the wikipedia page on it - it has a lot of good information. Anyhow - to give you an idea of the severity of my case - a normal person's platelet count should be around 150,000. On thursday evening I had 45,000 - it was extremely low. The only way to reverse HELLP Syndrome is to deliver the baby. Funny how one's body can be pregnant for 28 weeks and then all of a sudden decide it doesn't like the pregnancy (it's like my body started attacking itself) - I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Thus, for both my child's sake and mine, I had an emergency c-section on Thursday evening. Thus, Lily was born on Thursday evening at 1 lb. 9 oz.

We have a long road ahead of us - especially Lily. They are taking great care of her in the NICU here at Swedish Hospital. She'll probably be here for at least 8-10 weeks.

Lily Day 3

It's been a busy day. I took a shower this morning - which helped me feel a bit more human again. Lily is doing pretty well today. She had an echocardiogram taken of her heart (it's like taking an ultrasound of her heart). They found she has an open blood vessel valve just outside of her heart which causes stress on her left ventricle. They tell us it is very common in premie babies. They will start her on a 48 dosage of medicine that is supposed to help close the valve and then check it again in a couple of days. She's still breathing well and was able to try about 1 or 2 ml of breast milk today. She had quite a full day, so we didn't get to hold her. This was totally fine with us. She just needed time to snuggle in and sleep this evening. We'll try and post some info to this blog often to help keep everyone updated. Bear with us, if we don't get to it everyday. Life is a struggle right now, with so many new and different dimensions. Mostly we are so thankful for little Lily and just pray she continues to grow strong and healthy.

Lily Susanna Herron

Sweet little Lily Susanna Herron was born at 11:08 pm on Thursday, July 23. She weighed 1 lb. 9 oz and is quite a little miracle!

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