Still Standing...

I'm still standing. Barely, but still here. I am so tired, much like every other new mom is. People said the one good thing about having a baby in the NICU (if there is one) is getting to sleep. Um, not so much, peeps. This pumping every three hours is starting to wear me down. New moms, do you just get used to fatigue, or does your body eventually adjust to the lack of sleep?

Someone please tell me my body will eventually adjust to the lack of sleep. Please.

The other part of this that kind of makes me want to just cry is: this is not going to end anytime soon. With a new born you can work on a schedule to get them sleeping through the night by 9-12 weeks or so. It is only November. My child is probably not going to come home until January, and at that point, I will still need to feed every three hours. At least she will be home with us and I won't have to feel like I have to shower and put on mascara to go see her at the hospital. I can feed her when she needs it and not shower for days on end if that's what happens.

Okay enough about me. Y'all want to know about Elsie. So here is the latest. Elsie has a small amount of fluid in one of her lungs. The doctors do not think this is pneumonia, at least, not yet. So they are watching her closely and have increased the setting on her CPAP so it is blowing more pressure into her lungs, which will make them expand more, make it easier to breathe, and get the fluid out of there. They think the cause of the fluid is immaturity...she is only 32 weeks tomorrow. Her lungs are just not mature enough to inflate large enough to breathe and oxygenate her blood without help.

I held her today and she did not have any apnea or brady episodes while I was holding her. The nurse said she had been doing much better since they increased the setting on her CPAP earlier this morning. She continues to try and get the CPAP out of her nose. She hates it and screams when you put it back in. Girlfriend can wail.

Tomorrow they will do another chest x-ray to check for the fluid, and do more blood work to determine if there is some sort of infection. They warned me she may need a blood transfusion if her blood count remains low. But, if she sticks with the plan and does well on the higher CPAP setting, then a transfusion will probably not be needed.

Tomorrow is 4 weeks. Four weeks in the NICU. 28 days. Marinate on that, people.

In other news, I had my second check up yesterday and was told I could stop my blood pressure medicine. We also had a lovely 'baby celebration' at Ryan's work. There are 10 or so people who work in the group with Ryan (in addition to us) that have had babies in the last few months, or are expecting between now and January so it was a big celebration. They put baby pictures of all the Dads on a projector and everyone guessed who the baby was. Ryan's pic (thanks Katie and Fran!) is one of him all swaddled up in a white blanket. The Emcee said he looked like he was in a straight jacket. Ryan said "probably."

Love y'all,
Ellen