Nearly home

Well, the levels *were* down and Janel and Nicole were reunited – although baby needed to stay in her incubator and under lights as often as possible. She needs three blood tests in a row below the treatment level, and then the phototherapy can stop, and then a further test several hours after that to make sure that it has stayed below and she can be discharged. Her second clear test was this morning, and they took the blood for the third at supper time, but the results weren’t in when I came home for the evening. Hopefully that will be clear and Nicole can sleep in the dark tonight  and then the final test will be tomorrow morning – all of which means that we could have our baby girl at home with us by tomorrow night!!!

This incubator is “climate controled” and Janel seems to be getting used to being in it, so doesn’t make too much of a fuss – although she has a habit of pushing her mask up off her eyes. She also tends to kick off her hospital tags, which is why she has one on her wrist *and* her ankle, and there is also a third one just out of shot at the end of the bed!! She is feeding well, and has put on some more weight, so all the signs are positive. We measured her this evening, and she’s about 51cm long (almost 20 inches), looks like she’s going to be a tall elegant lady like her mother!!

It will be very cool to finally get her home, although I must say that the thought is also rather scary – a hospital is a safe place to look after a baby, you know that there are experienced professionals just around the corner to call upon if you run into difficulties; at home it is that little bit harder to find help when you need it…

Until the next time.

Graeme

Photo-blog

Some Photographs to keep the wolves from the door… 

Nicole on her bed in the postnatal ward

Daddy and Daughter – not a great photo, I’ll have to take some more!!

Nicole with “Krypton Baby” – this is the light treatment blanket that Janel wore over the weekend.

View from the SCBU – makes it a really relaxing place for parents!!

View from the ward – sunset over the river and Parliment, not quite as nice!!

What a difference a day makes

Well two days to be exact…

Janel has been in the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU) over the weekend, receiving light treatment and being fed by a tube down her nose, and has much more energy when it comes to feeding time. She has is improved nicely over the last 48 hours, and for the last few feeds managed to take all the milk she needed directly from Nicole. Her billirubin tests (indicator of jaundice) had steadily decreased and she was taken off the light treatment this morning. Her weight has improved and had gone up to 2.12kg last night.

Although this separation (the SCBU is on the same floor as Nicole’s ward, but on the other side of the building) has been hard for Nix, it has allowed her a little time to herself for sleeping between the feeding and the expressing. Even so, on a ward with four beds there is plenty of coming and going to keep you awake!!

We are waiting for the results of the latest test as I type, but hopefully, if things have not got worse, Janel will be able to leave the SCBU and sleep with her mom tonight. It seems likely that she will be kept in hospital for a few more days to make sure that she continues to gain weight, and that the billirubin stays down.

There are more photos, but I haven’t got around to downloading them from the camera yet!!

Love to all
Graeme

And suddenly... there she was

Well, all of a sudden its all over and we have a daughter!! Since we thought we’d have another 6 weeks to debate the matter, she doesn’t have a name yet, but she was born just after noon on Tuesday and weighed in at 2.19kg.

Nicole’s waters broke just after 7pm on Monday evening and there was some bleeding, so the hospital told us to come straight in. She was contracting every other minute for about a minute when I got there after dropping her off and parking, and they moved her to the labour ward to keep an eye on her and baby. She was about 1cm dilated at that time. The contractions calmed down after a while and I left her there to come home and drop off the car and fetch some extra panties – there was a lot of water coming out of the woman!! She was almost exactly 34 weeks, so they thought that everything would be fine, but they gave her a steroid injection which will help the development of the baby’s lungs.

We spent Monday night in the labour ward, and by mid-morning Nicole was having painful but irregular contractions – her blood test had revealed an infection of some kind and so they decided to induce in case it has passed to the baby. They put her on the drip at 10am and I decided to go home and have a shower and get changed as the doctor reckoned that she would take 10-12 hours to deliver, and that they would re-assess in 4 hours. Nicole called at about 11:30 to say that I needed to come back at once as labour proper had started (she’d gone from 1.5 cm to fully dilated in less than 90 min!!!!). Unfortunately, baby was born while I was stuck on a tube outside Kennington – bum luck!! There was a bit of a scare when her heartbeat couldn’t be located, so she was delivered by ventouse to get her out ASAP. Her chord was wrapped around her neck and she was apparantly VERY purple, but she started breathing on her own and seems to be happy and healthy. She’ll be kept in for at least 48hrs while various tests are done and antibiotics administered. Nicole tore a blood vessel and needed several stitches, but her perineum is fine. I was there for the stitching and that was bloody and painful enough – perhaps being stuck in the tube was a mixed blessing 

That’s enough for now – more details about the first few days to follow later.

Graeme