From 6/2/2010 - Squishes "condition"

I know a lot of you have been following this, and wanting more info. Here is an email I sent out:

Things are exhausting, but everyone is doing good.

I'm not sure what you know, but Kaitlyn ended up being life flighted to Phoenix when we had her on Friday night. She was grunting instead of breathing and crying, and showing other signs of respiratory distress, so to be on the safe side they had her sent to the hospital in Phoenix. I'll get the name of the hospital when we are up there later... I just know how to get there.

Saturday her breathing issues got worse - which is what Dr. Z (the neonatologist taking care of her) said would happen. Her breaths per minute was all the way up to 125-135 per minute which was very bad, and dangerous. The put some stuff called surfactant in her lungs, and put her on a CPAP machine to force air in. It did wonders and within an hour her rate was down in the 50's. (20-60 is a good rate for newborns) We had been warned that the CPAP could damage her lung, and it did. She developed a small tear from it that caused her left lung to collapse part way. They took her off the CPAP and put her on just a tube in her nose for the air. The CPAP had done it's job and gotten her airways working by then, and the tube relaxed her lungs enough that they could re-inflate and the tear has been healing, they think it's probably all the way, or close to all the way healed now. (They don't want to do xrays all the time on a baby so small). She still has some issues with her lungs, but she's getting better. One of the things is that when she eats they think the pressure of the food filling her tummy presses on her left lung and she has to work harder to breathe, so the % of oxygen in her blood drops - but that is getting better daily. They planned 2-4 more weeks of time in the NICU for those problems.

Kaitlyn also started having problems Tuesday that got really bad on Wednesday with coming off of my pain medications. They ended up having to start giving her a tiny dose of morphine, rather than have her suffering. They are having to ween her off the morphine slowly, and we've been giving a 2-3-4 week guess on that process as well, but have been told that some babies take as long as 2-3 months, or longer, depending on how much and what the mom was taking. So far they have weened her more quickly than they have any other baby. Dr. Z said that I did a great job weening off the medication, and that she probably would have been fine if she had stayed put till her due date. I feel really bad knowing that it's my back problems, and my pain medication that had her suffering, but the doctors and nurses have all told me that with my pain and problems I probably would have miscarried her, or she would have been born weeks earlier without it. The pain can cause you to miscarry in the first and second trimester, your body saying you have too much wrong to bring another life into the world and take care of it - so if I hadn't taken it then we could have lost her then. If I had stopped taking it sooner, or weened to quickly the pain would have caused me to go into labor and she would have been born earlier, as it is they think my back pain is what caused me to start having contractions all the time after I hit 30 weeks. Dr Z said I did what I had to do to keep her in me, and safe and healthy in there - his job is to get her well enough to come home.

I'm doing well - I'm exhausted, but it's so worth it. I'm pumping breast milk every 2 hours most of the time for Squish to drink, as it turns out she is quite the little piggy when it comes to feeding. I get a 4 hour stretch of sleep at night and that's it - after that every 2 hours I pump for 15-30 minutes so it's a little bit tiring. At the same time  I know how good it is for her, and seeing her guzzle it down feels good.