1 Week Old

Today Kristi is one week old and has been through a lot more than just eating, sleeping, and pooping although she has done plenty of that too.  After 12 hours on the CPAP machine is was breathing just fine on her own.  They had her little hand hooked up to an IV for antibiotics and fluids. Every baby that comes through the NICU get antibiotics right away and for at least two days until they get the test cultures back.  Praise God, Kristi didn't have any infections after 48 hours (Wednesday) and they took her off the antibiotics and kept her on the IV fluids. By this time, Kristi was a pro at breast feeding and Lynn milk was starting to come in.  On Thursday, her Bilirubin were too high and she got a blue light bed to sleep on, as of today, she is still under the blue light, but her counts have went down, so we are hoping that see is done with the blue lights soon.

The biggest obstacle that now stands between Kristi and coming home is her Bradys (her heart rate drops) and Desats (her oxygen level drops).  Usually these happen together.  In the first few days of her life this come happen at anytime, but now I typically only happens when she bottle feeds.  Which puts lots of pressure on Dad to watch her for these "episodes" as I call them in order to do all the right things to help her recover.  The NICU nurses are training me well and Kristi is improving her eating skills everyday.  The nurse said she must go 4 or 5 days (depending the Doctor) without a Brady or Desat in order for her to come home.  Yesterday (Sunday) was the first full day without her having an episode which is very exciting and now the count down start, hopefully lots more days without an episode.