Status quo!

Brinson is doing pretty well today. She is just starting to realize she is on the vent and is not liking it. Which is good and bad at the same time. There is really nothing to help her feel better but good because she is breathing over the vent and hopefully she will be able to move to CPAP right away.

Today Melissa, nurse practitioner, talked about Bottle Feeding, HOME and O2. Likely in 2 weeks after the surgery they will start with bottle feeds this assumes the surgery goes great and she moves off the CPAP. She also talked about HOME and that Brinson will likely need O2 for a little bit. Very big steps still left to do, but still neat that they are talking about it.

Brinson is just over 12 weeks old and 36 weeks of life. Her term date is June 26th. We will still reference the latter until she goes home and will have 16 extra weeks to achieve milestones because she is a preemie. Meaning if she is supposed to be walking in X months old, we get to X months + 16weeks to achieve walking.


UPDATE on other babies:
Today James headed over to Texas Children's for some specialized eye surgery....keep him and his family in your thoughts and prayers. We had lunch/dinner with Chris and Nancy today. They are such delightful and brave people.

Tomorrow we go visit with the Baldwin's. If you remember we shared a pod with them. We understand Zachary is doing great.....I guess we find out tomorrow.

Tomorrow Aubrey and clan are staying overnight in the hospital before they go home on Monday. We hope to visit with them in the hospital.

Also Noah is doing great, we saw Mama Laura holding for the first time since his PDA surgery.

evening update

Brinson did well for both procedures. She will have morphine over the next 24hrs to allow the central line to heal. It will be 2months before we know if the eye surgery was successful.

Eye Update!

Well Brinson is going to need ROP surgery. Her stage 2 in one eye has progressed to stage 3 and both eyes have the big vessels. The surgery will be later today (1630 or so).

Brinson is scheduled for a big evening with no more food, getting a central line (for blood) as well as the ROP surgery.

There is a good chance that she will only need glasses for near sightedness and nothing more.

Keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

Started feeding again....

Brinson had a good evening so they started the feeds up again today. I believe it is 3cc over 3 hours or something crazy small like that. They will slowly add the cc back. FYI she was up to 12cc per hour continuously before the episode.

The nurse today says she is quite irritable (equals crying) because of the lack of food. Hopefully the milk will help calm herself.

BTW She lost 10grams last night....as to be expected since she was not receiving any food.

All bundled up

Because of her wild personality and probably the fact that she is hungry (no food till Friday, maybe), the nurse has her bundled up.

During the time I was there after dinner,Brinson was a awake.

Outside the incubator...

Outside the incubator because of Brinson's early morning episode, she has to deal with noise, no food and multiple IVs. That is the price to pay.

If she does well tonight, then they will probably start her feeds back up. In the meantime, they started the lipids and TPN via IV. She also has received 1 transfusion and will get one more later tonight.

Since Mommy and Meme are not coming tonight, I am posting a bunch of photos and videos.

Look Mommy another grin!!!

The white bean bag pressed against the pacifier is used to prop it up.

Brinson getting Sweeties.
Sweeties is a sucrose liquid used to calm preemies.

Early morning scare

This morning we were awakened by the Doctors at 6am because Brinson decided to have an apnea/bradycardia episode. They pulled out all the stops to see what is wrong with her.

She has been moved to a warmer (out of the incubator), they have started her on antibiotics and taken blood & urine cultures.

They also stopped her feeds and raised her CPAP back to 10.

The speculation is it could be an infection (but nothing in her blood work at 4am and 630am suggests that. (white blood count is low and almost no bands). So if not an infection, it could be the change in CPAP combined with the fact that she has been a bit anemic. So likely it is the later, but only time will tell. They plan to give her blood today and we will wait and see how she acts.

I visited with Brinson this morning and she looked pretty good. She was waving her arms trying to get out of the CPAP as usual, she was sleeping, grinning and sucking. After visiting, I feel pretty good that Brinson is doing fine.

Daddy visits after dinner

Last night I decided to see if I could get her weighed and bathed before I go home. Before I started getting ready I looked down and she is very wiggly. Then Brinson turns her head from facing out to facing in....she was going to move with or without the CPAP. After she moved I fixed the CPAP and this is how she ended up.

Well she gained 10 grams and she loved her bath. Ya know after the bath is best time to see her wide awake. She was like a rag doll when I dressed her. I think the warm water just relaxes her.

The only problem is on bath night you get like 15 minutes and then the lights are on, but no one is home. When I left she was sleeping quietly.

Blessyew!!

This evening I got a chance to hold Brinson. I was not sure it was going to happen but as you can see below it did. There is a new admit next to Brinson (Brandon) and it was really hopping in the pod.

Brandon weighs 4kilos. That is over twice what Brinson weighs now. He is huge. Well it seems he had some trouble breathing....but now is just fine. While I was there he went on the vent and off the vent in 2 hours. Size and age play a big factor. Though he will be here a few days to make sure all is ok. He will be going home very very quickly.

Brinson is going to have at least 2 procedures by next week. The first procedure will be a central line. It will be used to monitor and give blood to Brinson. She will need this line for the 2nd procedure. The 2nd procedure is to put her intestines back together. Both the first and second procedure will require her to be on the vent again.

BTW she will not be eating anything after the procedure for 7 to 10 days....and then we start all over on the feeds.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Brinson has made good steps on the CPAP. They have lowered the pressure from 12 to 10 and now 8 today. That is good. Hopefully she will do the minimum time on the vent and get right back on CPAP.

They also went up on her feeds from 11cc per hour to 12 cc per hour, continuously.

Getting closer to 4lbs

After a nice rest the day before, yesterday I went to see Brinson. (Mommy and Meme are still under the weather and stayed home.) She is doing quite well. I held her for about 1/2 hour before PDA surgery for Noah started. (He did wonderful so no worries there)

Her eye exam is better. She is now Zone 2 and Stage 2. With Stage 1 and Stage 2 you still do nothing, but being in zone 2 is so much better.



















They also did a barium test of her bowels to make sure everything is still working. And yes it is still working.

After having dinner with the Rahman's (thanks guys, I owe you)....I headed home.

Lisa called in late last night and Brin now weighs 3lbs 13.6oz.

Look at her hands, they are getting so chunky.

Mommy and Daddy take a rest

Today, Mommy, Daddy and Meme take a rest. I guess we have been worn down over the last few weeks and now we don't feel so good. Nana, Grampa and Grammy took over down at the hospital today with a nice long visit.

The excitement of the day was going in and out of the isolette. What I mean is Brinson got cold after her bath and was unable to get warmed up fast enough. So they moved her back to an unenclosed warmer (like at the beginning). That only lasted about 12hrs and now she is back in a warmer.

Oh yeah, we found more out about the ROP. She has stage 1 and zone 1. Zone 1 is in the center of the eye and can affect her vision. So the stage 1 is good, meaning that it has not progressed, but it would be better if it was zone2 or zone3....towards the outside of the eye. Tomorrow she has another eye examine. So keep Brinson in your thoughts and prayers and hope she does not need eye surgery and that the ROP has gotten better.

Abuelo holds his first grand-daughter

Yesterday, Abuelo got to hold Brinson for the very first time. He was very excited and she loved every minute of it.

Daddy's Little Princess and Mommy's Little Monkey

Still gaining and Meme holds again

Since yesterday I was not feeling well with clogged sinuses, we let Meme hold. Brinson did pretty well....pretty well at getting out of her prongs (CPAP). Meme was not used to that, so I think her sitting with Brinson was more stressful than she wanted. But no worries, both did very well.

She gained another 15 grams last night and now is just over 3lbs 10oz. She is on her way to 4 lbs. Yeah!!!

We heard back from Kim and Stephen; Zachary is settling in at home and he is just under 6 1/2 lbs.

This afternoon Abuelo gets to hold for the very first time. I am sure that will be exciting from him. I still remember seeing him light up the first time Brinson squeezed his little finger. Now that is a moment I will never forget.