All This Time

This is a long post.  It's been a long 24 hours or so...

I just walked in from literally being at the hospital ALL day, with a short break at lunch to grab lunch with a good friend, and a quick blitz into the mall to grab a few items that I've been desperately needing.  The nursing staff made fun of me because I was out and about before lunchtime... haha.... :P  Usually my mornings are devoted to working from home and a few house tasks around lunchtime.  Today was a different story though after last night.

Last night I went back for our evening feeding.  Jim wasn't feeling great and decided to get some rest at home for the feeding.  They had told me earlier in the day that she had a few "spells" of DSAT-ing and turning blue.  (Basically, her body wasn't getting enough oxygen)  Thankfully I hadn't ever seen one of these spells.  Last night that changed though.  She started setting off the monitor like normal, but this time her color started changing.  Luckily it wasn't as bright of a blue as I expected, but she was blue none-the-less.  The nurse rushed over and started beating on her back and rubbing on her to wake her up and get her to start fighting for the oxygen she needed.  She cranked up the oxygen and came back to continue "stimulating" her by rubbing and beating on her back.  This all of course is happening right in my lap, which is incredibly disconcerting.

Sarah finally did wake up and start coughing and breathing deeper again and regained her color almost immediately.  Obviously she wasn't very happy about being so rudely awakened, so it took her awhile to get her calmed back down and settled into her bed for the evening.  The nurse also in her haste to make sure she was alright ripped off her outfit and told me she needed to go back on the heater and be just in the diaper so she could better see her breathing.  She hasn't had any problems DSAT-ing like that at all today, and luckily the nurses today felt she was ready to head back into outfits and towards room temperature.  I am so thankful for both of the nurses that were there today.  Both have been incredibly helpful and and supportive as we journey through this unknown time.

She hasn't been doing well with nursing the last few tries.  She has not been interested, nor awake for the most part when it was her meal time that I was there to nurse for.  Both sessions yesterday and again this afternoon were not productive in the least.  Tonight Jim and I will go back and try a bottle instead and let him have a little daddy-daughter time.

All that to say, in my discussions with the Nurse Practitioner, she said what is going on is likely this:  They have noticed that Sarah is having quite a bit of reflux, which we did notice.  She's been spitting up a lot more and has had a few times of actual "throw up".  She said that for reflux to start showing up now is completely natural and expected based on her size and age.  She also talked about a nerve (forgive me that I don't remember the technical name for it...) that is in the esophagus that is particularly sensitive for babies that you or I would never notice.  When the acid in the reflux and the nerve interact it causes their heart rate to slow down briefly.  The heart rate slowing down then causes the oxygen disbursement to not be as effective.  Normally it wouldn't be a huge issue, but as all babies have a decline in blood count after birth, she thinks Sarah's just hitting her normal bottom of her blood count.  So between the reflux and a low blood count, her "spells" are appearing worse than than they have been.

There's really not much they can do for the reflux other than incline her bed (which she already has), slow down the rate at which she receives her food (which they have done off and on), or decrease her feeds (which isn't a real option since she needs the calories to grow).  They also could thicken her food to help it stay down better, but that's one of those... last resort type options, as it makes eating from a bottle a lot harder for her.  They could also resort to medicine, but studies show that reflux medicine doesn't consistently work enough to validate it's use.  They will try it only if the other options don't work and she continues to have unbearable issues with it.

Please pray for my little girl as it is so incredibly hard to see her struggle and be in pain.  I am believing for full healing from her reflux issues so that she can continue her growth journey with no more complications!  Will you join me?

7-2-12: After getting clothes back on today and resting finally.