Emily Updates

Emily ended up in the hospital for two weeks after she was born. She was having apneic episodes and they didn't know why she was having them. The next few posts are update that Nate sent out to people updating them on what was going on. It was the easiest way we could answer everyone's questions with out actually having to talk to everyone.

The first update (in this post) was sent after 4 days in the hospital. By this point in time she had been moved from the regular nursery to the Progressive Care Nursery (PCN) to the NICU.

This first update was from April 27th...

Since we're getting a million phone calls, I thought we'd start sending out a daily or twice daily e-mail to everyone until Emily gets out of the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). For those that haven't heard, I'll do a quick re-cap of what has happened since Sunday. We were about 15 minutes away from leaving the hospital on Sunday when the Pediatrician put a hold on everything because Emily stopped breathing and turned blue (or as they say "dusky"). 2 hours of observation in the nursery turned into a trip to the PCN (Progressive Care Nursery) where the ratio is 3 infants to 1 nurse (in the regular newborn it's 7:1). They just wanted to watch her more closely. She had another "blue episode" there, so they moved her to the NICU (ratio of 1:1). All total, she's had 5 "blue episodes" where she stops breathing and starts turning blue. She had one yesterday evening about 6 PM. They suspected she may have contracted a bacterial infection when she passed through the birth canal so they put her on a 3 day round of antibiotics. Or it could be Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), which is basically acid reflux. Or something else. They are trying to rule out all possibilities.

They did an EEG (Electroencephalography)on Emily today. They have done at least one EKG (Electrocardiography). They were doing an MRI on her brain at 3:00 PM today when we left. We're going back tonight to check on her again. Overall she seems to be doing pretty well. They just don't want to send her home and have us back again within 24 hours. She is definitely the healthiest baby in the NICU (which is supposed to be one of the best NICU's in Richmond). She is at Henrico Doctor's Hospital at the Forest Campus (which I learned today was one of the top 50 hospitals in America for 4 straight years). So she's in good hands.

At 6:00 tonight she will have gone 24 hours without an "episode", which will be her longest yet. They were going to consider keeping her for one day for observation after she finished her course of antibiotics (which should be today), until her episode last night at 6. Now they are saying they want to keep her for 3-5 days without having any episodes before they send her home. So basically she has made it 1 day if she doesn't have anymore until 6 tonight. But she needs to go 2-4 more days without having any episodes before they send her home. So she could make it 2-3 days and have another episode and they might reset the "countdown". Or they might just send her home with a monitor. I think they're going to do that anyway. It's frustrating. I know she's in good hands, but it's definitely anti-climatic when you have such a wonderful birth and such a wonderful little girl, and you can't bring her home. It hasn't really sunk yet that we're parents because we have no responsibility for her basic needs yet. Someone else is changing her and feeding her and holding her. We go by there when we can (visiting hours are 24/7 in the NICU), but we can't live at the hospital.

They are still leaning towards a bacterial infection or possibly Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD). We're keeping our fingers crossed that we can bring our little girl home sometime this weekend, but we may have to bring a monitor with us to monitor her breathing. I know I won't get a wink of sleep the first night she's home because I'll be so worried she'll stop breathing in her sleep.