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Peeper has orders to move from the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit PICU to Intermediate Care Unit.
That means an actual room, with just one roomy (Although our current wardmates and their parents are quite lovely. More on that later.) and with a bed for an adult, right there in the room.
And, a possibility of moving in an extra bed, so we can both stay there.
Now, we're just waiting for the room to be ready.
Yippee!!!
After she nursed at 3 am, Peeper evidently said, "Hey, those are still here? What am I doing with these stupid bottles, then?"
After refusing a couple of bottles, we got permission for her to just nurse from here on out. Yay!
She nursed around 9 am, and then she was all happy and playing and even sort of smiling a bit. I was shaking her rattle, and she reached out, grabbed it and shook it.
Um, Peeper, you don't know how to do that!
I guess she got some new knowledge while she was unconsious? :-)
The nurse and I got her bathed and cleaned up a bit and just as we finished that up, and she wasn't acting hungry yet, and I needed to make a phone call, so I did that and the nurse got her settled for a nap.
She was asleep when I got back and they claimed she settled just fine. I hope she really did. We nursed again at noon, and Shrike got here while we were in the middle of that. Peeper started fussing around, probably needing to poop (after finishing one side and starting the other).
So, I handed her off to Shrike and we got her some Tylenol and a little glycerin suppository to help her poop and she was still fussing about the poop, but Shrike had her in their dancing position (seated) and I'm checking email and blogging, then will lay down and try to sleep.
But not pumping. I could find that I still need to a bit, but she seems to have it covered ;-)
3:30 am - almost exactly 48 hours after I had to cut her off the morning of surgery.
She did a great job. She got one side, and I had the nurse help me turn her around to do the other side (have to be very careful handling her because of the incision and the accoutrements), but she was pretty much out by then.
We put her back in bed and stood there talking for a bit until I realized that she was still awake, and "fish-facing" at me like she was still hungry, so I asked if I could give her the other side and she let me.
She didn't go nearly as long on that side, but still did a pretty good job, and she's asleep now.
I'm going to finish post this, and then maybe pump or maybe not; I'm deciding how good a job she did.
Then I plan to sleep til around 6:30, pump, and get back in there for the 7 am shift-change.
I told the nurse to go ahead and give her the 6 am feeding, since it has to be a bottle anyway.
I suspect (would like to think ;-) ) that, especially now that I've nursed her, she would not be happy about a bottle from me, even if she'll take it from someone else.
She said that I can talk to nurse practitioner when she gets here about when we can go back to nursing fulltime.
Other than that, not much news. I slept an hour or so, which helped alot. Like I said, I'll probably get another 1.5 - 2 hours sleep in a bit here.
Downright luxurious.
Anonymama asked if it's painful when we pick Peeper up and move her.
I'm really not sure. It didn't seem to be too bad, but we didn't handle her much.
We've each held her once, and the nurse picked her up from the crib and put her in Shrike's arms, then got all her various tubes and wires and such arranged.
When we were ready to switch, she took her from Shrike and held her while she and I traded placed, then got Peeper situated in my arms.
Shrike had her long enough to give her a bottle and then some (while I went and pumped) but I didn't get to hold her as long, because she started fussing around a lot, and I wasn't able to do anything of the things I'd normally do to settle her down - nurse, put her on my shoulder, move her to a sitting or standing position, etc.
By that point, the nurse said she was probably exhausted, so she got her back into the crib, got some Tylenol in her (I think she's maybe had a bit of morphine since then), got the jammies on her and settled her in to sleep.
With the jammies covering her incision and the various tubes that are still going in and out of her, other than the betadine stains everywhere, she's starting to look more like a regular baby again.
Shrike is giving her a bottle of breast milk right now, and I think she'll probably head back to the hotel before long. I plan to nurse her for the 3 am feeding, and I think they'll make her get at least a couple more bottle feedings before I'm allowed to go back to just nursing.
I don't know if I've even mentioned this part, because I've been so focused on her recovery - but the doctors say that her holes seem to be completely closed.
Her heart function is not quite what they'd like to see (that's what made us think earlier that we would not be able to hold her this evening, after all) but that's kind of to be expected.
As explained by the nurse practitioner who is mostly managing her care, her right ventricle is used to being overfilled and no longer is, so it sort of thinks that it's underfilled and has to "tighten up" a bit, and her left ventricle is used to having to pump extra hard to get enough blood out to her body (because so much was being diverted to the other side) so it's kind of confused, too.
Basically, her heart has to learn to be normal, and that should take a few more hours. They are weaning her off of the medication that's helping with that, and hope to be done with it by mid-day.
As I said earlier, we are tired (much less so, since I slept for about 3 hours earlier this evening) but we are very relieved and very happy with how things are going, so far.Around 3 pm, we were told that Peeper would have to stay on one of her medications that we thought she was going to be off of this evening. That medication required an arterial line, which was what was keeping us from moving her around and holding her.
Then, the nurse practitioner who is managing her care talked the cardiologist into letting her pull the arterial line, after all, and around 6 pm, Shrike was able to hold her and give her a bottle of breastmilk, and when they were finished, I held her for a while.
They still want to keep a close eye on how much she's eating, but I've been told that I will be allowed to nurse her once this evening.
Shrike plans to stay at the hospital til around 10 pm, so she's going to give her the next bottle, at 9ish, and then I will nurse her later, when I'm the only one here.
I'm hoping I can talk them into more nursing, sooner rather than later, but they do have their rules.
A couple of thoughts on that, though - they are only measuring input, not output, because they pulled her Foley catheter at the same time as the arterial line, and also, a NICU nurse pointed out to me that they determine intake with before/after weights all the time - so I might ask if we can do that.
We're exhausted, and I'm supposed to be taking a little nap right now, but we are very, very happy with how she's doing.
Peeper is awake, alert(ish), eating and content.
She's been out of the oxygen tent and on room air since early this morning.
She's had a couple of bottles (1/2 oz, 1 oz) of pedialyte, and one bottle (1oz + a teeny bit) of breast milk, and did great with those.
They are going to do another echocardiogram soon (when the echo team shows up; she's kind of near the bottom of their list) and if that's all good, they will remove her arterial line, Foley catheter and maybe something else, at which point, we'll be allowed to hold her!
For purposes of measuring input and output, they want to continue to give her breast milk by bottle for the rest of the evening and possibly into tomorrow, but I should be able to nurse her at least once this evening, and do a combination for a while until they are comfortable with her going back to nursing fulltime.
Shrike is in with her right now, and has been since she got to the hospital this morning. I'm going to go try to catch a nap in a few minutes.
All in all, everything continues to go very well, and we couldn't be happier with her progress.
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Peeper and I have been breastfeeding for...
Six Weeks
Three Months
Six Months
Nine Months
Twelve Months
Eighteen Months
Two Years
Three Years
Four Years Four-and-a-half years and counting! | |
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