NICU Diary 3

Emilia is 35 weeks in gestational age and 64 days old in actual age. She seems to be one of the oldest babies in the NICU. There is one other baby I know who has stayed for ninety-something days. I am not sure if there is any baby who has been there longer than Emilia, other than that particular baby I know, who was born in late April and is about 39 weeks gestation.

As Emilia gets older, day by day, week by week, I am becoming more anxious and uncertain about our transfer and discharge. Every time the baby next to Emilia leaves, either for home or to a Level 2 nursery, there is a new baby that comes, only to leave in several days while we are still sitting at the same place. I feel depressed. Even a younger baby got transferred to a step-down unit last night, and I must wonder "why not Emilia?". As so many faces change around us, I feel we are the only ones that's going to be left behind here forever, while everybody is moving forward. This certainly is a depressing feeling when you want your child to be the best and healthiest one in the unit. Although I must not, I can't help comparing Emilia to other babies around us to see if she is doing what other babies are doing.

When I bid farewells and wish all the best to other parents of NICU, I wish I was the one leaving, not left... but I know we will hang in here for the next while.

Emilia graduates to Newborn size diaper!

At the beginning of her NICU stay, Emilia wore a micro preemie size diaper (smaller than my palm). At the time, I didn't think it was so small, because Emilia was tiny and it was the right size diaper on her. But now when I look at the diaper, it looks like a toy - a diaper for a doll.

Emilia then outgrew the smallest diaper and started to wear a preemie size diaper, which is just a regular Pampers diaper, but in a smaller size. The preemie size diaper used to be so big on her that it looked almost like a body suit.

In the past week or so, Emilia has been wearing either a newborn size diaper or a preemie size diaper, depending on which one the nurse stocked in her incubator. But today, the nurse finally said Emilia needs to wear a newborn diaper because this morning she had a huge leak in her diaper (and it was pooh!). So, Emilia now graduated to the newborn size diaper, though it is a little loose and big for her.

Just to show you what kind of diaper she wore 60 days ago, here is a picture:




Diaper is not the only thing that she outgrew in NICU: look at her blood pressure cuff! She now has a bigger cuff so the nurse gave me the earlier one as a souvenir (as this cannot be used by another patient any way). It fits on my finger.

Emilia is 9 weeks old

Wow, time certainly flies by, and in our case, it's a good thing.
Emilia is now 9 weeks old and 34 weeks and 5 days of gestation.

I remember when I first saw Emilia right after she was born, I was amazed by how complete a preemie's anatomy was. Her body had eveything I had, only in miniature. Her tiny hand with tiny fingers, round finger tips, knuckles, finger nails, ...
And it is even more amazing that her tiny finger nails did actually grow long since birth. I wonder if she would have been born with long finger nails. Perhaps her nails are growing because of all the nutrition she gets in her milk (and fortifier).
Any way, she was pinching and scratching herself a lot recently so I tried to file her nails with an emery board. Emilia got her first manicure treatment sans coloured nail polish.




As we all know by now, she was briefly on low flow oxygen this past week. I am hoping we can try it again soon and she outdoes what she showed us last time. Any progress would be good. I don't expect to see her completely off CPAP suddenly as a lot of 25 weekers do need respiratory assistance for longer periods.

Her weight has been pretty much stalled at 2 kg. I think it's mainly because she was trying so hard on low flow oxygen. Breathing alone is a hard exercise for her and she didn't gain any weight for 2 days. Last night she weighed at 2.1kg.

Emilia - first immunization shots!

Emilia got her first immunization shots today. I am told immunization is the only thing they go by the "actual" age, not "corrected" age. She's 60 days old so she got her 60-day immunization shots, one shot on each thigh. She was given sucrose and a soother, but when she got poked, she stopped sucking on the soother and cried. But as soon as the needle was out, she continued on sucking on the soother as if nothing had happened. It was so funny to see her reaction change in one second. Any way, she tolerated the shots really well. She's a big girl now.

Emilia on low flow oxygen - first try

Yesterday, the doctor decided to take Emilia off CPAP and put her on low flow. The nurse thought she wouldn't last more than an hour and go straight back to CPAP. I thought she would do much better than that, maybe because I am her mother and I think she's underestimated by many nurses.

At noon, she got the cannula on her nose and started on low flow oxygen. I was by her side all day long yesterday feeling terrified, not knowing what to expect. Was she going to be distressed because of the hard work of breathing without any CPAP air flow? Was she going to get tired and stop breathing? I felt Emilia was so vulnerable without the CPAP mask. Perhaps I have grown dependant on CPAP more than she has. The clock was ticking and as each hour passed, I was so glad to see her do well on low flow. She had 2 spells yesterday but the whole evening and night, she had no problem. I really enjoyed looking at her face without the dreadful prong mask, ties, and hat.






She continued on low flow into this afternoon, but at around 6pm, she had three apneic spells and the nurse thought it was an indication that Emilia was not ready to be off CPAP completely. So when I came back to NICU from dinner, I found her back on CPAP, which made me disappointed and sad because I had been all excited about giving her a real bath in a small bowl tonight. With CPAP, she can't get a real bath... only a sponge bath. I was told that Emilia was really mad when they had to put the CPAP mask and hat back on her. It saddens me to think that she had only a day of freedom from all these things that cling on her face and head but also I am very proud of her for breathing so hard for 30 hours. We are going to try to put her on low flow again in several days and see how she does. Hopefully with each try, she will grow and learn to breathe on her own.