More Progress and a Major Major Scare

Yesterday they moved Taylor out of her fancy expensive bed and into a crib. It is quite strange seeing her in small crib (its tall so that she's at waist height), but also very cool. It could be a nicer crib. Its all metal and kind of looks like a cage, but it looks a lot less scary than the other bed she was in.

She is now 4 lbs and 13 oz.

I brought Tristan in today (after school) to the hospital so that I could go to work for a while. While I was in there Taylor's sat level were 98 - 100 and I commented to Michelle how awesome she was doing and she said that she had been doing that good since last night. It was very encouraging. I had brought Taylor's car seat with me, but didn't bring it in that time. This evening I decided to, figuring that maybe it would add some good mojo to the room and give Taylor some encouragement to get this thing in gear so that we could get out of there this week. I was further encouraged to see that they were no longer monitoring her oxygen saturation levels! Another huge step! Michelle said that they removed the monitor an hour or two before I got there.

I was hungry and decided to have a french fry (Michelle had told me there was food for me). It needed salt so I pulled open the salt packet and started shaking it all out over the fries. After a little shaking I thought to myself "man this is a huge salt packet" and then realized I was using Sugar. Oops! Then Michelle pointed out that "I just ruined her dinner and that my dinner was over on the day bed". Double oops!

Anyway, as always my timing is impeccable and Tristan had to go to the bathroom. I took him down there and stood waiting forever for him. He was wanting me to sing songs with him as he sat on the toilet. I told him that my time was very limited with mom and I wanted to see her for just a little bit, and that we needed to get going because we still had to get Haylee and get them home for bedtime. He told me that he "needed to sing, because otherwise he was going to fall asleep." :-) Apparently the day at the hospital wore him out. Anyway we were in there for what seemed like hours, but was probably just 1/2 hour to 45 minutes. He finally finished, and we headed back.

I saw that the door to Taylor's room was open and the light outside the room was off which meant no nurse was in there. I thought that was pretty strange as the door is normally shut (our preference). I got a big shock when I rounded the corner and there was a nurse (sometimes their tracking devices don't always work right) and a doctor hovered over Taylor and Michelle was kind of standing back. My heart sunk. I haven't seen a doctor in the room for a very long time except on scheduled visits. The doctor was listening to Taylor with a stethoscope. Michelle turned to me and said "It was bad. We are very lucky we are here tonight!" and the nurse looked over and agreed.

Michelle was eating her "sweet potatoes" when Taylor's heart rate alarm went off. Its not unusual of course so at first she wasn't worried and just got up and started talking to Taylor. Then Taylor's heart rate just kept going down and down, and the nurse ran in. The nurse soon asked Michelle to get another nurse and then they called for the doctor. Michelle said Taylor "looked dead". She turned gray and if it wasn't for the monitor still showing a heart rate, Michelle said she would have freaked. Taylor was pretty much lifeless except for the occasional real shallow breath. One nurse started giving her oxygen and the other started suctioning. They suctioned a small amount of milk up. Taylor slowly started recovering.

Apparently she had burped up some milk. They had her on her back like they do at times and when she burped up she basically asphyxiated on it. Which is why our kids don't sleep on their backs at home. Of course, this goes against everything they say about SIDS but... Anyway, she got her oxygen monitor back on and her sat levels and her heart rate slowly climbed back up. They were worried that some got in her lungs (remember that when she got that water dose a while back how much it set her back), but thankfully they didn't and still don't hear any sign of that. Anyway, it was a major scare. Michelle told me later tonight that she thinks Taylor would have died if she was at home, as we would never have known something was wrong until too late. Its certainly a reminder of just fragile she is.

Tristan and myself had to leave soon after that. What a horrible way for the night to end. I felt very bad for not being there (Michelle was very happy Tristan was not), and it was hard to leave. I left the car seat in there but with a lot less hope that it would be used this week. Perhaps Taylor saw it and got scared or something...

Michelle is kind of guessing that it will be next Monday before Taylor is discharged. Our main doctor won't be back now until the weekend and told Michelle he was betting we'd still be there. But who knows...

Michelle had lactation come by again today and they again told her she's doing everything perfect. After hearing everything from Michelle about how nursing has been going, they're concerned that Taylor already is getting nipple confusion and don't want her getting bottles until after trying to breast feed every time. So the plan is to breast feed, then bottle feed, then give her what's left through her feeding tube. They also told Michelle that Taylor is putting her tongue to the top of her mouth and this is typical for her age, but it is also why she is struggling breast feeding right now. She could snap out of it at any time, or it still may take her a couple months before everything clicks. The lactation lady had also had a preemie and she said that it wasn't until 1 month after her baby was full term before their problems ended. I certainly hope not. Otherwise I'm going to have to buy a huge walk-in freezer for all the milk Michelle has been pumping. I have 14 pounds of breast milk in 1 freezer (yes I did weigh it) and god knows how many pounds in Shanon's freezer and we are still overflowing the NICU's freezer. I keep joking that I'm going to make cheese or ice cream out of it, but at some point I'm going to start looking for recipes. Hmm.. Perhaps this is some of that personal stuff I'm not supposed to be talking about here. Don't tell Michelle.

Here's hoping the rest of the week goes perfect!