Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Shopping practice :)
Miss K got her craft show on Saturday... Got to see lots of wonderful people! :)
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Busy, busy, busy!
After a follow up appointment with both the pediatrician and surgeon, she's been given a clean bill of health. We are so grateful! However, we weren't given much explanation to what went on, it's still at the point where everyone has an opinion about what happened, but no one is sure. The good news is that she's healthy and doing very well. These issues are unlikely to reappear, at least that's the going thought... a little hard to say for sure since no one is sure what happened in the first place. She's growing very well and is a pretty good little sleeper. Sorry for not getting pictures up lately... they'll be coming soon!
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Kyleigh's second night
Travis went home that evening to stay with Micah, despite all the drama. The nurses talked me into sleeping on the OB side for a few hours... The Nicu was really busy that night with an emergency surgery on the floor (never a good day), so we really weren't supposed to be over there anyway. At about midnight i went over to check on her and caught one of the neonatologists that was there for the surgery. He explained that he'd examined the ultrasounds they'd done during the day, and that they saw something that appeared to be a mass in her abdomen, between her spleen and her stomach. it was about 1x1" and appeared to be not attached to either organ, but it was hard to tell. He wanted to do a CT scan immediately to get more information (of course there was a multiple trauma car accident that night and radiology was really busy). He also advised us that since he wasn't sure what it was, we should be prepared for possibly doing surgery in the next 24-48 hours.
I'm pretty sure after he explained all of this my reply was, "What?!" No one had mentioned any sort of mass, the ultrasounds were supposed to be of the area of her intestines that was of concern. Thanks be to God, the doctor on that night is probably the sweetest and easiest one to talk to in the group. He did his fellowship at Cincinnati Childrens, and has the great bedside manner to prove it. Anyways... so here I was, trying to figure out what to do. Do I call Trav is the middle of the night and have him drag Micah out? At least I had my wits about me enough to realize I could call my parents and have them come over to our house and have Travis come up here. My parents were already having a heck of a week with her in the nicu and my grandpa in the hospital, but they'd kill me if I didn't call, so I did. Don't remember when exactly Travis got up there, but they got her down for a CT at around 5 am. The doctor came by shortly after (if i remember right) and explained that whatever was on the ultrasound, there was absolutely nothing on the CT scan... Whatever it was had disappeared or never was there to begin with! To this day there's still debate on what went on that night. We'll rack it up to Hartman family miracle # who knows how many. We were so relieved beyond imagination and promptly passed out in the hospital couch and chair. LONG night.
I'm pretty sure after he explained all of this my reply was, "What?!" No one had mentioned any sort of mass, the ultrasounds were supposed to be of the area of her intestines that was of concern. Thanks be to God, the doctor on that night is probably the sweetest and easiest one to talk to in the group. He did his fellowship at Cincinnati Childrens, and has the great bedside manner to prove it. Anyways... so here I was, trying to figure out what to do. Do I call Trav is the middle of the night and have him drag Micah out? At least I had my wits about me enough to realize I could call my parents and have them come over to our house and have Travis come up here. My parents were already having a heck of a week with her in the nicu and my grandpa in the hospital, but they'd kill me if I didn't call, so I did. Don't remember when exactly Travis got up there, but they got her down for a CT at around 5 am. The doctor came by shortly after (if i remember right) and explained that whatever was on the ultrasound, there was absolutely nothing on the CT scan... Whatever it was had disappeared or never was there to begin with! To this day there's still debate on what went on that night. We'll rack it up to Hartman family miracle # who knows how many. We were so relieved beyond imagination and promptly passed out in the hospital couch and chair. LONG night.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
The post I don't care to relive. (part 1)
The second 12 hours.
The Nicu nurse practicioner came to us to examine Kyleigh. She appeared healthy and with no cause for concern other than what they'd already seen. They decided to run x rays and remove some of her belly contents to send off to the lab. The lab results would be at least 24 hours, but the x rays were pretty much immediate. She left and shortly after returned with the neonatologist, who we had with Micah, but didn't remember us right away. They explained that the x ray showed pneumatosis. (We weren't at all familiar with this diagnosis...) They explained that the the bowel was likely infected and the lining had cysts in the wall. This however, had nothing to do with the vomiting blood. However, she didn't appear sick, and that infants with pneumatosis typically appear very ill... They also explained that in this neonatologists 12 years of practice, he'd almost never seen a full term infant with this condition. Things really didn't add up. The protocol for the pneumatosis was 7 days of no food and antibiotics, and obviously she needed to go to the Nicu right away.
And I LOST it.
I almost never lose it. Sometimes with medical things I get visibly frustrated or a little teary eyed, but I hadn't lost it since they day Micah was born, when they told me they had to send me to a different hospital after he was born, and that I wouldn't get to see him for at least a day. (That was not the plan).
Poor doctor, LOL.. I sobbed and sobbed and tried to spit out that we'd been through this all before and this was my HEALTHY baby... that i had one already one with a feeding tube... (of course there was a big logical gap between where she was and a feeding tube, but no one was going to try to reason with me.)
They gave us about a half an hour or an hour with her before they whisked her away. My recovery time was over, all 24 hours of it. That beat Micah's 18 hours i was separated from him. You don't realize how nice it is to lay in bed and have your baby handed to you... to pass the baby around with family (and we were glad we'd had a lot of people in the day before).... that was over now.
They insisted we stay out of her room for the first hour or two while they place and i.v, a tube in her nose, ran labs and tests. We explaied we've seen all of these things plenty with Micah, but they insisted. That is such a crappy feeling, that they're taking your baby and are going to do these things, but oh, you can't be there to comfort them. UGH.
They put a huge tube in her nose (a 10 fr!) to drain the contents of her stomach, since they were still having blood coming out (and it came out for a few days). Blood in the tummy is extremely irritating and they wanted to stop her vomiting. At that point she wasn't totally miserable because of no food, since newborns belly's are the size of a marble and they don't really need anything for the first day or two. She was on i.v. fluids, basically sugar water, so she'd feel more stable and get needed fluids.
We all filed through to see her, and i came and went from the OB floor to the Nicu... They were MUCH closer than Cincy which was nice. What wasn't nice was having to walk past the newborn nursery everytime I went to my room... And hearing the babies crying throughout the night, only to realize it wasn't yours. It was miserable. My OB stopped by that afternoon and caught me in my room... unfortunately she was totally oblivious to what was going on. This poor lady had no idea... She tried SO darn hard for this to all go smoothly, to treat the pregnancy as normal as possible... the whole bit. Of course, i didn't keep it together trying to explain it to her either. She was so sweet and supportive, and reassured me she was in good hands. My delivery nurse stopped by to offer a hug, as did Micah's speech therapist. (who also had no idea what had gone on, poor lady too!)
(Had to change this to the next twelve hours, not up for explaining the next twelve yet... Maybe another day...)
The Nicu nurse practicioner came to us to examine Kyleigh. She appeared healthy and with no cause for concern other than what they'd already seen. They decided to run x rays and remove some of her belly contents to send off to the lab. The lab results would be at least 24 hours, but the x rays were pretty much immediate. She left and shortly after returned with the neonatologist, who we had with Micah, but didn't remember us right away. They explained that the x ray showed pneumatosis. (We weren't at all familiar with this diagnosis...) They explained that the the bowel was likely infected and the lining had cysts in the wall. This however, had nothing to do with the vomiting blood. However, she didn't appear sick, and that infants with pneumatosis typically appear very ill... They also explained that in this neonatologists 12 years of practice, he'd almost never seen a full term infant with this condition. Things really didn't add up. The protocol for the pneumatosis was 7 days of no food and antibiotics, and obviously she needed to go to the Nicu right away.
And I LOST it.
I almost never lose it. Sometimes with medical things I get visibly frustrated or a little teary eyed, but I hadn't lost it since they day Micah was born, when they told me they had to send me to a different hospital after he was born, and that I wouldn't get to see him for at least a day. (That was not the plan).
Poor doctor, LOL.. I sobbed and sobbed and tried to spit out that we'd been through this all before and this was my HEALTHY baby... that i had one already one with a feeding tube... (of course there was a big logical gap between where she was and a feeding tube, but no one was going to try to reason with me.)
They gave us about a half an hour or an hour with her before they whisked her away. My recovery time was over, all 24 hours of it. That beat Micah's 18 hours i was separated from him. You don't realize how nice it is to lay in bed and have your baby handed to you... to pass the baby around with family (and we were glad we'd had a lot of people in the day before).... that was over now.
They put a huge tube in her nose (a 10 fr!) to drain the contents of her stomach, since they were still having blood coming out (and it came out for a few days). Blood in the tummy is extremely irritating and they wanted to stop her vomiting. At that point she wasn't totally miserable because of no food, since newborns belly's are the size of a marble and they don't really need anything for the first day or two. She was on i.v. fluids, basically sugar water, so she'd feel more stable and get needed fluids.
We all filed through to see her, and i came and went from the OB floor to the Nicu... They were MUCH closer than Cincy which was nice. What wasn't nice was having to walk past the newborn nursery everytime I went to my room... And hearing the babies crying throughout the night, only to realize it wasn't yours. It was miserable. My OB stopped by that afternoon and caught me in my room... unfortunately she was totally oblivious to what was going on. This poor lady had no idea... She tried SO darn hard for this to all go smoothly, to treat the pregnancy as normal as possible... the whole bit. Of course, i didn't keep it together trying to explain it to her either. She was so sweet and supportive, and reassured me she was in good hands. My delivery nurse stopped by to offer a hug, as did Micah's speech therapist. (who also had no idea what had gone on, poor lady too!)
(Had to change this to the next twelve hours, not up for explaining the next twelve yet... Maybe another day...)
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Baby Kyleigh, the first 24 hours...
So I haven't/haven't been able to share many details about the last almost 2 weeks. So, here goes. We'll start with the happy part.
Rumor has it I'm (Brittany) pretty stubborn. I didn't want Micah to wake up the day she was born and not have one of us there, so Travis stayed home til he got up and then met me at the hospital about an hour after I had to be there. My admitting/surgery nurse was a sweet, amazing woman. Due to all the pre-op questions, Micah's story started to come out. We both agreed this would be a planned, smooth going event. She went through all the details when I asked her to, and I was feeling WAY more calm than Travis by the time we went to the OR. He was ready to get it over with! Much to everyone's surprise the OR was running on time, and we went back. Everything went well and was much more relaxing than the pre op process with Micah. When the doctor came into the O.R. she commented that we'd made it full term... and that she didn't think I thought we'd ever get to this point... and she was right!
When she was born, the doctor said, and i quote... "no nicu this time" and "she's perfect!" We got to see her briefly, and Travis went over to her bed to check on her. Her color was slightly off, but she was screaming in no time. When they were fixing me up, she went off the nursery to get cleaned off and wrapped up. Her body temp was a little low (maybe because the OR was freezing! Even the O.R. nurse said it was colder than normal!) so she had to stay there until her temp got up, she got a bath, then got her temp up again. Sadly that was probably an hour or more. :( Trav had the camera and was going back and forth taking video and pics so i could see her.
The next few hours were a little morphine hazed, but she was good and being passed around the family. She was nursing well but spitting up sometimes. We opted to have her sleep in the nursery in case she continued to spit up, which she did.
As you can see, we were all thrilled beyond belief at our sweet little girl... even Micah was sold on her once he got over the "what on earth is going on" factor. :) She slept really well overnight (and still does, mostly!) and we all got a little rest. Next morning she relaxed with all of us and was nursing, but spit up after every attempted feeding. That morning she spit up a pretty good amount of old dark blood. We were assured by multiple people that it's not uncommon and she probably swallowed blood during delivery. Since blood is really irritating, that was probably causing her tummy troubles. Next feeding though, she spit up bright red blood. Not a ton, mixed with saliva it made a couple quarter sized stains. This, however, is NOT normal, and the medical staff started moving much more quickly...
All in the first 24 hours.
Rumor has it I'm (Brittany) pretty stubborn. I didn't want Micah to wake up the day she was born and not have one of us there, so Travis stayed home til he got up and then met me at the hospital about an hour after I had to be there. My admitting/surgery nurse was a sweet, amazing woman. Due to all the pre-op questions, Micah's story started to come out. We both agreed this would be a planned, smooth going event. She went through all the details when I asked her to, and I was feeling WAY more calm than Travis by the time we went to the OR. He was ready to get it over with! Much to everyone's surprise the OR was running on time, and we went back. Everything went well and was much more relaxing than the pre op process with Micah. When the doctor came into the O.R. she commented that we'd made it full term... and that she didn't think I thought we'd ever get to this point... and she was right!
When she was born, the doctor said, and i quote... "no nicu this time" and "she's perfect!" We got to see her briefly, and Travis went over to her bed to check on her. Her color was slightly off, but she was screaming in no time. When they were fixing me up, she went off the nursery to get cleaned off and wrapped up. Her body temp was a little low (maybe because the OR was freezing! Even the O.R. nurse said it was colder than normal!) so she had to stay there until her temp got up, she got a bath, then got her temp up again. Sadly that was probably an hour or more. :( Trav had the camera and was going back and forth taking video and pics so i could see her.
 |
| Pretty clear on how she felt about our cold, cold world :) |
The next few hours were a little morphine hazed, but she was good and being passed around the family. She was nursing well but spitting up sometimes. We opted to have her sleep in the nursery in case she continued to spit up, which she did.
As you can see, we were all thrilled beyond belief at our sweet little girl... even Micah was sold on her once he got over the "what on earth is going on" factor. :) She slept really well overnight (and still does, mostly!) and we all got a little rest. Next morning she relaxed with all of us and was nursing, but spit up after every attempted feeding. That morning she spit up a pretty good amount of old dark blood. We were assured by multiple people that it's not uncommon and she probably swallowed blood during delivery. Since blood is really irritating, that was probably causing her tummy troubles. Next feeding though, she spit up bright red blood. Not a ton, mixed with saliva it made a couple quarter sized stains. This, however, is NOT normal, and the medical staff started moving much more quickly...
All in the first 24 hours.
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