A busy day for a two-week old!

It is not yet 3 pm and our girl has had yet another big day! She was doing very well with her feeds, so they have bumped her up to 18 mls an hour. She is on hourly/continuous feeds currently, but by tomorrow she should be put on a 3-hour schedule. I am currently waiting to see someone from the Speech Department to talk about oral feeds and the possibilities of breast feeding. Because of her cleft palette, it is possible that she will never be able to breast feed. We are going to do our best though, and even if she can't actually nurse, she will get plenty of non-nutritive breast time.

I arrived here this morning around 8:30 and met with her nurse for the day, Tommy. I had just missed rounds, but Tommy told me about all of the things that would be happening today - she had both of the lines in her belly button removed and they were about to remove her RA line and the pacing wires that go into her heart. They allowed me to stay for the procedure, which was quick and relatively uneventful. Our girl is a bleeder though and bled from both locations for quite a while. While it wasn't a large amount of blood, it was fairly continuous, so the nurses were mildly concerned. Dr. Ince came over to check on her throughout the morning and both locations eventually clotted and stopped bleeding.

The dressing on her chest had been removed yesterday and she started to bleed (though very very slightly) from the lowest spot on the incision again. The doctors still believe that it is mostly fluid mixed with a bit of blood and that her body is simply "sponging" it out. Again, they are not overly concerned. We do have to be careful when we change her or when she gets upset because she tenses up her body and as a result she squeezes her chest and the fluid/blood mixture will "ooze" out of her. Tommy placed some secured dressings on it and hopefully that will help it clot up and stop oozing.

Speaking of changing, she had 2 poops last night and a 3rd one while I was with her. Honestly, I have never been so excited about poop! In fact, she had the most boisterous diaper-filling that I have heard in quite some time. I was laughing in the CICU! Laughing at my tiny daughter's ginormous toots. It made me remember those first few weeks with Madison and how surprised Charley and I were about how something so small could produce something so disgusting! It made me really happy though to be experiencing the same thing with Aurelia. It is starting to change from the black meconium stools that babies have when they are first born into something more like baby poop. This can be attributed to the breast milk that she is now getting in her body. In fact, she has been taken off of all of the nutrients that she was being fed since she was born. Her current diet consists solely of breast milk, which makes Mama really happy! All that pumping is well worth it!

So, to re-cap, our daughter currently has a feeding tube (in her nose), a nasal cannula that is giving her lungs a little boost with room air (it was at 50% last time I checked), an IV in her right foot, and a blood pressure cuff on her left ankle. She has a wire taped onto her left hand. That measures her pulse and oxygen levels. She has 3 additional leads on her chest and belly, keeping track of her heart beat and bp. That's about it. Other than the feeding tube and IV, there isn't anything inserted into her body. This is huge compared to just 2 days ago when she had a breathing tube, a chest tube, 2 belly button lines, pacing wires into her heart, an RA line, and everything else listed above. I will say that it has been pretty overwhelming knowing that my daughter had open-heart surgery just 3 days ago and she is now minimally "wired." I kept thinking, "Aren't they going a little fast? Should they be removing all of these things so soon?" I felt very reassured when Dr. Svast (one of the head Cardiology folks) stopped by and said that it was great that they were removing everything because there would be a lesser chance of infection.

Once again, I'm really proud of our little girl. She handled everything beautifully today. She even let Mama give her a bit of a sponge bath, to clean up the dried blood and some of the orange dye that remained from her surgery. After the bath, she got bundled up like a burrito and then spent a few minutes in Mama's arms. I was so excited to get to hold her again. I sang to her and cuddled with her while she made some sweet baby cooing sounds. I fell in love with her during those moments and can't wait to hold her again.

One thing about the CICU that is frustrating, but completely understandable, is that when another baby is being admitted into a pod or coming back from surgery, all non-medical folks get booted from the room for at least 30 minutes (usually longer). I appreciated it when Aurelia came back from surgery and Charley and I got to spend a few minutes with her before others were allowed back in, so I understand that this is necessary. But, I was enjoying my sweet baby-holding time and had to cut it quite short! Luckily, I'll be heading back in shortly and will get to have my girl in my arms again. I will try to get some pictures too and add those later on this evening.