K and K updates

1/19/06
Kaitlyn Update

I was able to spend a lot of time with Kaitlyn the last few days, holding her and trying to feed her. I could just sit and stare at her for hours. I love watching her sleep. She smells so wonderful. I would give anyting to be able to do this from the comfort of my own home in her nursery. Come home Kaitlyn!!!

Kaitlyn was changed yesterday to feeds every 3 hours (instead of 4) with 50 cc’s given each feed (instead of 67). (1 ounce = 30 cc’s) This means now a “full feed” is less than 2 ounces. It’s very important that preemies grow as quick as possible, as that is the main thing that will help them grow out of problems (like her lung disease). They like them to grow 1 oz a day.

I did have a few feeding successes; I got her to take a full feed yesterday evening. Dad was there too, so maybe she liked having both of us around her. But her nurse this morning just got her to take 30 cc’s, so she still has a way to go.

Because Kaitlyn has been on antibiotics for almost 2 weeks, she also has a terrible diaper/yeast rash. She’s super uncomfortable and irritated, which is usually never the case. The antibiotics were for the red swelling in her throat (which was cultured to be eColi).

Her cry. She still really isn’t crying, but we can hear something. I don’t really know how to explain what we can hear, sort of a guttural type noise when she is crying. It breaks my heart when I see her crying, turning red when she is really upset, but not making much noise. She pumps her feet and waves her little hands around, and opens her mouth, but not much noise comes out. There is another baby in the NICU that has the loudest cry you can imagine, I tell Kaitlyn that she is supposed to sound like that.

We would give anything to hear a nice, loud robust cry. Isn’t that the opposite of most new born parents?

As of now, Kaitlyn’s Docs want to just continue what we are doing. She definitely gets pissed off when you try to feed her more than she wants to take. She clamps down her lips and pushes the nipple out with her tongue and shakes her head from side to side. It’s obvious that she’s done and that she’s going to eat on her own schedule. I tell her all the time that if she would just eat more she can come home. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to understand that it’s up to her.

Here is Kaitlyn "clamping" her lips down saying she doesn't want any more bottle.

The good news is that she is doing very, very well off oxygen. I was sort of hesitant to mention this much, as if I might jinx it by concentrating on it. But amazingly, she is doing great. The docs warn me that when (not if) she gets her first cold it is likely that she’ll have to go back on oxygen. All we can hope for is that she continues to grow which will make her lungs grow and heal from her Chronic Lung Disease.

Dad got to give Kaitlyn his first bath yesterday!

Just prior to the bath, a little father daughter bonding with a little helping hand from a nurse.

Auntie Elissa from Conneticut holding her neice for the first time over the weekend. Elissa is also pregant with her own little one, so Kaitlyn will have another cousin nearly the same age.

Liz taking Elissa to do a little "sight seeing" in SF in-between Kaitlyn's feeds. Brian had to work unfortunately.

Kaitlyn has gotten very good at both scratching her face with her nails and pulling out her nasal feeding tube. Here she is with mittens on. You can see her scratched face near her nose/eye.

Kailan, Our other daughter, Update

Our dog Kailan came out of surgery ok, but we are still waiting to see the outcome. She is home with us (as of yesterday), but is definitely not feeling well.

Brian is at work today, so I have to take a day off going to the hospital today to be with Kailan. The vet did find some partial blockage stuff in her intestines, but sadly they are not convinced that was what the problem was. She is shaved in so many places, has about 20 staples on her tummy. She is definitely in pain. She did eat today though.

As soon as I saw her after the surgery, I started to cry. She is too old of a dog to have to endure all of this. And I feel especially guilty because we think the culprit is that she ate both my wound packing stuff and my “pads” after delivery. We tried our best to keep them out of the trash once we realized that’s what she was eating, but with all that happened in the beginning after my delivery, we probably were not the best dog parents for awhile.