Almost Morning

Peeper's continued to do well overnight.

I decided to stay at the hospital, since I needed to be up pumping every 3 - 4 hours anyway, and although we know the nurses and doctors are taking great care of Peeper, and we know that she's safe, I knew I'd still be worried about whether she's happy.

If we were at the hotel, they'd only call us if something were wrong, but with me here, they have instructions to come get me if she's awake and crying.

Also, given that I've got to be up pumping, and given that I am, well, me, we figured that Shrike and I would both get more sleep with me here.

I am not fretting about what's happening, and I'm not keeping her awake!

I got some sleep, then got up to pump and visit with Peeper for a while.

I will go back to "bed" in a few minutes, until time for the nurses to change shifts. Shrike is at the hotel, and will come back to the hospital as soon as she's up.

Assuming she keeps up the good work, they will probably let Peeper start feeding later today - first some Pedialyte, then some breastmilk by bottles, to measure her intake.

As soon as they are happy with the stability of her blood pressure (it's been a bit high, which is typical) they will remove her arterial line (which is measuring it) and then we can pick her up, and I think she will be allowed to start nursing at that point.

In the meantime, they are giving her plenty of morphine and Tylenol for pain. She's awake enough to respond to her environment - holding our fingers, startling at noises, etc - but has been asleep most of the time.

And I should be, too.

More updates as I have them.

Breathing on Her Own

Peeper came off the ventilator, and had her NG tube removed around 4:20 pm. She's now under an oxygen tent and doing great.

As you can see in the photo, the tent only covers her head and chest, so we can hold her hand and touch her legs / feet.

What's most amazing is that she is already breathing better than she was this morning, before surgery. Her respiration rate is much lower and she's not sucking her chest in like she was.

Thank you all so much for everything.

Daily Peep: Post Op

Peeper is out of surgery and doing really well.

She's coming out of sedation (but will still be good and stoned on morphine) and they are talking about extubating her (taking off respirator) in the next hour or two.

The nurses tell us that she will be under an oxygen tent after that, and we won't be able to touch her, and she won't know if we're here or not, so if I'm going to leave, tonight would be the time to do it, because she should be eating tomorrow.

They've just about got me convinced to go to the hotel with Shrike tonight, but I'm not quite sure yet.

I need to get back in there, but here's a photo that I just sent from my phone.

Looks like hell, but is doing great.

In Surgery

Peeper is in surgery now.

She did pretty well this morning, and didn't start complaining too much about being hungry until the last thirty minutes or so before she went back.

By that time, the admissions nurse was in the room, and I was talking to her, which was distracting me (somewhat), and Shrike was getting the brunt of the complaints.

Probably better though, because at least Peeper didn't *expect* Shrike to feed her.

Anyway, she went back around 7:15 and she was crying when we handed her off (she wasn't the only one), but the anesthesiologist said they'd have her sedated pretty quickly. (Wouldn't you?!)

We've had breakfast, and we're in the peds family room, waiting for Shrike's family and DoulaK to arrive to sit with us, and for the lactation consultant to get me set up for pumping.

I'm doing ok on that front (so to speak) at the moment.

(Until I think for too long about Peeper, then I start letting down. Or "downloading" as I keep finding myself wanting to say.)

It was kind of rough when she was crying earlier, though.

We're not likely to have any news for a few hours, but I will update as soon as I can after we hear that she's off the heart/lung bypass, and done with surgery.

Surgery Update

Just sent her back to OR. Send mojo.

Waiting

At hospital, waiting to go.

On Our Way...

to the hospital in about 15 minutes.

The Night Before Morning Of

Not asleep.

Surgery Day

Well, by one minute....

We're at a hotel in SurgeryTown. Shrike is asleep in the bed, Peeper is asleep on the boppy in my lap and I am . . . blogging.

We were told not to give Peeper her "bedtime" (1 am-ish) meds tonight/this morning, so we figured we could go to sleep early, since we'll be up so early.

But, I was leery of putting her down for her long stretch of sleep at, say, 10 pm, because when we wake her up at 5 am to go to the hospital, I'd like very much for her to think (know) it's still the middle of the night, and not time for the breakfast that she's not allowed to have.

So, I'm on the laptop with Peeper nursing / sleeping / nursing in my lap for a bit longer, and then we'll crawl in bed and sleep until the alarm on my phone goes off around 3 am. At that point, I'll change her diaper to wake her up a bit and try to get her to nurse as much as possible, because I have to cut her off at 3:30 am.

That's the other reason for keeping her nursing for now - so that she's better prepared to get through that four hours from that last pre-op meal until they conk her out for the surgery.

I think that next to the moment when we have to actually hand her to the nurse to take back to the OR (which I cannot talk, type or even think about without crying), I think that may be the worst part of this - if she's awake and hungry while we're waiting, because she will be upset, and we will be upset, and she won't understand why I am refusing to nurse her.

(And, of course, neither will my breasts, so I'll be hurting physically as well as emotionally.)

All I can think of to try to prevent that, or at least temper it a bit is to get her good and tanked up now, to basically encourage her to "cluster feed" more or less up until the cut-off time, so she'll sleep through as much as possible.

I wish I thought I could just stay up and nurse her constantly until 3:30, but that would be pretty stupid, since I'll be up again at 5-ish and won't be getting decent sleep for the next four days.

So, I guess I'll let her finish this meal, then get myself ready for bed, maybe give her a new diapers, and we'll get in bed and maybe nurse her back to sleep if needed, then catch a couple of hours of sleep for myself.

Looking at her right now, I see that her little head is getting quite sweaty - that's a sign of fatigue which is caused by the difficulty she's having breathing, and we're seeing more and more of signs lately of the VSD actually having an impact on her - the rapid breating, sweating while nursing, her chest sucking in more, and even a couple of very brief episodes of blueness around her mouth.

That's why we're doing the surgery, and that's why it's time to do it.

But we still hate it.

Daily Peep: Glow Worm

Peeper mostly likes this glow worm, but sometimes (like in the photo) seems a bit uncertain about it.

It's actually a "Lullaby Glow Worm" which plays (duh) lullabies when you squeeze it.

It cycles through "Brahm's Lullaby," "Frere Jacques," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," (or possibly "The Alphabet Song" or "Baa Baa Black Sheep"), "Hush, Little Baby," "Pachebel's Canon," (which we played at our wedding!) and "Rockabye Baby."

Ironically it does not play "Glow, Little Glow Worm."

Which reminds me:

Overheard one day, as Peeper was crying, and Shrike was singing to her:

Whozat: What's her problem?
Shrike: She's pissed off about all those crappy gifts you're going to get her.
Whozat: What gifts?
Shrike: You know, the mockingbird, the cart and pony . . .