Tuesday

We finally have time to get to Tuesday. Once it got time for the late night feedings I realized that I overdid it as far as visitors and being up and about. I took a quick nap before heading to the NICU for the 1130 pm feeding. Just to give you a distance reference - our room was on the 5th floor and I had to go to the 4th floor, by elevator, to get to the NICU. It wasn't a super big distance but it did add up when I made roughly 8+ round trips in a day. I let the nurses know I would not be doing the 230am feeding and just give her a bottle.

Okay, back to the 1130pm feeding. This was the first time Willa spit up. I've been around plenty of babies. To have your baby girl with an abdomen wall defect spit up/gag is a very scary thing. I was shaken up. My NICU nurse was worried by the color of the spit up it might be indicative of the blockage and would take careful notes of how the 230am feeding went.

Willa also doing working
on her abs.

All was good in NICU pod D when I showed up for the 530am feeding. Potential crisis averted and Willa ate like a champ. When I headed back to the room for breakfast and a shower I knew I just had a quality ab workout from the feeding.

Another big event from the day was the the fact Willa's IV in her right hand blew. IV's go bad and a vein will go bad. It happens. The right hand was actually the second IV location. Previously the IV had been placed in her right foot.  Our NICU nurse started to search for the next great vein which apparently isn't so easy on a four day old baby. Willa's veins are very small and you have to choose carefully. The first attempt in the left hand failed. The second attempt in the left hand failed. At this point I asked how long it would take for the vein to heal. The answer was weeks. My next question, how many viable veins does Willa have? The answer was not enough to keep blowing veins. The nurses are only allowed to attempt twice before someone else needs to try. Also, they try to place an IV towards the extremities. The higher on the arm or leg takes away all of access points towards the hand/foot. No one else from pod D stepped up to plate or was asked to poke my daughter.  Instead, a "ringer" from another NICU pod was summoned. She got the IV in one try on the right hand. I wanted to kiss her.  Hearing your daughter cry after getting stuck three times is sooooo difficult.

While enduring the IV drama I kinda got a  phone call. Apparently, we are the only omphalocele baby currently at UNC.  This is "exciting" because UNC has an informational DVD about abdominal wall defects and they wanted us to have a copy of the video. Sure fine, bring it to me. Well, I wasn't in the best of moods and asked the nurses why are they giving this to me? This is the sort of thing I needed during my pregnancy and not when I'm already living with the  problem. It turns out the video was just finished and they wanted our feedback AND the IV goddess had a speaking role in the video. Open mouth insert food.

When babies are undergoing painful or stressful times the nurses use something called Toot Sweet. Consider it sugar crack. The babies are wailing and flailing until they get a drop of the sugar juice. I've also heard it is sold commercially. Thinking about trying to find some.

I also had my true first sighting of the om. Our peds surgeon, his resident and our nurse had just completed coating the om with silvadene.
Silver sulfadiazine, a sulfa drug, is used to prevent and treat infections of second- and third-degree burns. It kills a wide variety of bacteria. This medication is sometimes prescribed for other uses; ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information. Silver sulfadiazine comes in a cream.
As you seen in previous pictures, the om is wrapped up tightly with gauze. My only concern...they had three people performing the wrapping and it will just be Daren and I at home. This is gonna be fun with a squirmy baby.

I'm saving the BIG news from Tuesday for last of all. We learned that Willa comes home when she is only taking breast milk and off the IV fluids. The urine output is determined by measuring her diapers and that gives an indication of her fluid intake. Sadly, we were not given a timetable of when we can expect to take her home.