Finally....Some Photos of Our Darling Girl!

note - this is in part the email that went out yesterday, however I have updated Gidget's current condition throughout the email as we have had another visit and update since emailing yesterday. ~Auds~

*sigh*

Just returned home from the hospital late yesterday afternoon. Can’t say I’m glad to be home. My heart aches here without my baby girl. But I am bolstered to know that she is getting the best possible care from so many wonderful and caring professionals. The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center is one of the best in the country and has a nationally recognized NICU unit. And once I'm done posting this to the blog, we’re headed back to the NICU to spend more time with Gidget and read to her again. Last night it was the book; "You Are My I Love You" which was a precious gift from "Uncle Sandy and Auntie Cyndi"....thank you so much, it's lovely and she seemed to enjoy it, although I was crying by the last page so Gareth had to finish it! Hormones ya know, and mine are all over the place. But I look forward to reading it to her again and again. It's a darling book and I love it.

I imagine, from here on out, our days will be spent with Gidget at the NICU. They have a special room to go to pump milk and try and make your time spent with your NICU baby as nice as they can.

Still though, it sucks to be surrounded by everything we’ve set up to get ready to bring our baby home to, and not have her here with us. Hopefully it won’t be for too terribly long.

Before the photos though, we spent some time with Gidget yesterday and were able to meet with the chief Neonatologist who happens to be Gidget’s Dr. and I can’t say enough good things about him. He’s a really wonderful man with sparkly blue eyes and such a genuine manner about him. He also loves each and every one of the babies and I enjoyed watching him interact with Gidget and then speak to us. He is extremely pleased with her progress thus far, and not wanting to push things too aggressively, they are marinating her where she is right now. I’m happy to hear that because once they wean her off the oscillating ventilator, then it’s back to the other one which is a tad more forceful and I worry about another pneumothorax (lung blow-out). For right now though, she’s doing pretty well at 25% oxygen and her saturation levels are nearly 100% which is awesome.

And then when we went back a bit after 8pm last night we were further encouraged that they have weaned her even more off of the oxygen. Her chestx-ray at 4pm yesterday showed that her lungs were nicely inflated and staying that way which made us all so happy!

I called this morning to check on her (I slept in a bit after having a particularily rough night trying to get comfortable and Gareth made the decision to only get me up when it was time for me to pump milk again) and she is stable and they've decided against further weaning for the time being until they get another chest x-ray and due to the fact that her blood gas levels are a tiny bit sporadic. I'm glad to hear that they are maintaining rather than being so agressive. I know they know best, but I know I'm also terribly nervous about them weaning too fast.

One thing I want to point out because someone made the mistake of emailing us and “suggesting” she was being “kept alive” or that the machines were doing the work for her….that could not be further from her actual situation. The ventilator she is on right now just helps keep her lungs inflated with short quick little puffs of air. That’s all. She is breathing on her own. She is doing about 85% of the work on her own. She knows how to breathe. Her only issue is immature lungs. It appears the second treatment of Surfactant helped tremendously. So please be aware of the actual situation and not your own interpretation of what you think is happening. It's incredibly stressful to see someone refer to her as being "kept alive via machines"...it's neither accurate or a fair representation of what's happening.

At this point, we are hoping for steadied improvement each day. We consider each day another blessing.

So, without further ado, here’s our girl….

Gabriella, moments after birth 12-26-05. Notice how huge her cord is and the knot in the cord. Doctors said the knot was a non-issue and consider it a good luck sign. However, I have since found out, that knots like that, if they tighten can become life-threatening in-utero.

Gabriella, moments after birth 12-26-05

Gabriella holding her Daddy’s finger shortly after birth 12-26-05. She loves her Daddy and the two of them already have an incredible bond.

Daddy cutting Gabriella’s cord 12-26-05

Gabriella, this morning, 12-29-05 Holding her Daddy’s finger. She’s resting comfortably. They have to give her a tiny bit of morphine to keep her comfy and keep her from trying to take her tubes out, which she does on a regular basis!

Here's to another day of steady improvement and another day which moves us closer to brining our girl home with us.