Savannah's hit a hurdle- Prayers Needed

Savannah's Oma and Granddaddy were both surprised by her size. it's hard to get an idea of how small she is. Here is a picture of her by daddy's hand to give an idea.

Just hanging out. This picture was taken after her event. see below for what I'm talking about.

Ok let me start with the good news.

• Savannah is stable.
• No more blood in her diapers
• She weighed in at 2lbs 3ozs
• She is still feisty

Here are the current hurdles and our prayer requests for Savannah:

• She had two bad apnea/bradycardia events.

Note: In preemies, apnea and bradycardia often occur together, along with low oxygen levels. First the apnea occurs and the baby will stop breathing. Because the baby isn't breathing, the oxygen levels will fall. The heart then slows down in response to the low oxygen levels.

• Her feeding was at 10ml this morning. It is now at 5ml. The feeds are being slowly feed to her over a hour period.
• She is back on the bubble cpap. She needs more help breathing.
• Her stomach is still a little distended. Good news- it appears to be just air...but still air in the stomach causes problems.
• She had a chest xray after the 2 events. Xray showed either fluid or a possible collapsing lung. The results were not clear. Another xray will be down tomorrow.
• She may have an infection. Blood cultures were drawn- results take 48 hours so the doctor has started antibiotics as a precautionary measure.
• She may have a PDA. Good news is doctor does not think so because she doesn't hear a heart murmor. An echo is scheduled for tomorrow to check for this.
• What is a PDA? Well many preemies often face an issue with their Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA).

The PDA is a blood vessel that connects the main vessel leading to the lungs to the main vessel of the body. When babies are in the womb, this blood vessel is open because babies aren't using their lungs to breathe so it allows most of the blood to bypass the lungs and go to the rest of the body. Once babies are born, the blood vessel will gradually narrow and then close after a few hours or days. In preemies, especially those who have had respiratory distress syndrome, the blood vessel may stay open.

Doctors may suspect that a preemie has a PDA if a preemie:

• needs more oxygen or help breathing when s/he should be needing less
• his/her breathing is more difficult or there is much more apnea
• the doctor or nurse hears a murmur (an abnormal noise over the heart)
• the baby's heart rate increases and/or the pulse changes

If a doctor suspects a PDA, they will give your preemie an echocardiogram to determine the amount of blood flow through the PDA. The echocardiagram is pretty fast - it looks like your baby is getting an ultrasound.

The doctors have several options for how to treat a PDA. They are:

• Wait. If the PDA is very small with only a tiny amount of blood flowing through it, doctors may decide to wait and see if it closes on its own.
• Medicine. Indomethacin is the most common drug used to try and close a PDA. It can affect some of your preemie's other organs so they use the smallest dose possible. Some doctors use ibuprofen.
• Surgery. If the PDA doesn't close with medicine (or on its own), then they will need to do surgery to close the PDA. (this information is compliments of this website.http://preemieparenting.blogspot.com/2008/05/closing-pda.html

The scary part for me is she had the first major event while I was trying to hold her. The monitor alarmed but I did not think anything of it because she does this occasionally and she always self recovers. I touched her back to stimulate her to help her self recovery. I watched in horror as she turned purple and the monitors got louder. The numbers continued to drop. I felt so helpless. The nurse apologized but said she needed to take Savannah back. I of course didn't protest it. I knew she needed help. I held back tears as I watched the RT tech, RN and Doctor help her out. She did recover after about a minute or so but the minute felt like an eternity. They all did their best to assure me that it wasn't my fault. She simply was having some difficulties and that I could maybe even try to hold her again tomorrow. When we left, she did look peaceful so that was encouraging. She was still breathing hard. As we left, I knew that she would have to go back on the bubble cpap. Kevin did his best to comfort me. I am ok now but I know I will still be hesitant to hold her. I find comfort in knowing that she is stable. As bad as it sounds this is normal preemie stuff. This a battle that almost every preemie Savannah's gestational age.

I find peace in knowing that God is awesome and He will protect her. I look at baby kevin and am reminded that preemie do face hurdles and they conquer them. I find comfort in knowing that she is covered in prayer. My friend Becca, a nicu nurse, comforted me as well by educating me some more about all of this. What do preemie moms that don't have a friends for NICU nurses do?

Anyways please keep Savannah is your prayers. I will not see her until tomorrow afternoon. I need to take Baby Kevin to his feeding clinic/speech therapy.

Here are the pictures from today:

Snuggling with her sock doll. This picture was taken after her event. She does look peaceful...just tired.

This picture was taken before the event. She was snuggled up with a small washcloth. I had take the sock doll home to sleep with so it could have my scent on it so she could feel close to me when I'm away.

This is the sock doll in my hand.

Baby Kevin with his first fruit bar popsicle. I figured he needed something new to celebrate him being a big brother. He loved it of course. :)