July 8th, 2007


Today I am being discharged, without my baby girl. That is not at all how I pictured it happening. I feel jealous when I make my track to NICU and pass the nursery of all the full term babies. I see them wheeling their babies into their rooms where they can feed them, hug them, kiss them and hold them. I have to walk into a room, wash my hands for two minutes and look at my Megan through window of her isolette while listening to the hum of her machines.

Luckily, the doctors allowed me to "nest-in" where I could stay in my room for a few extra days. That gave me more time to be close to Megan. Plus the hospital food is not that bad :)

We talked to her doctor and got the results of the head scan. Something small did show on the scan. Dr. Omar said it could be a blip from the scan, small bleed or a cyst. Fortunately, we didn't see anything distinctive that could be a level 3 or 4 bleed which is great news. If it is a small bleed, it could be a 1 or 2 bleed which is classified as mild. The nurse said that many times, a small bleed is just absorbed by the brain or can be treated with medication. He will repeat the scan on Monday or Tuesday just to confirm. They will probably do few more scans before her release. We are so comforted about the dr's dedication to her recovery.

I am anxious to hear the results of her next scan and pray and pray that it is okay.

She had slept peacefully again and actually had a pretty uneventful day! We had a few visitors. Every time we checked on her, she was just resting peacefully and stable! The nurses said that was ideal because we just want her to rest and grow just as she would have inside the womb. They increased her breast milk again to 3 cc every 3 hours! YAY!!! They have not been pulling out any residual from the breast milk, so she is taking it all in!

We got our first pictures of her - she is so beautiful! She had opened her eyes a bit and we see these little blue eyes. We spent time studying her features to see what she may have gotten from Mom and Dad. We quickly got copies of the pictures and circulated them around the family.

Her blood gas tests have been good. They check for the levels of oxygen, carbon dioxide and acid in her blood. It will let the nurses know if her ventilator needs to be adjusted.

We are now waiting for her first dirty diaper! She actually had a "smear" today, so they expect to see one soon. That would be a great sign! The nurse gave her a stool softener to help. She is still peeing up a storm.

I went home around 4pm. It was hard to leave. However, I was already thinking of what I can do at home to keep myself busy. In the next two weeks, I knew that I would spend most of the time in bed trying to recover. My discharge instructions stated no driving for 2 weeks, no lifting above 10 lbs, no sitting or standing for long periods of time and restricted use of stairs. Plus, we had some shopping to do considering we weren't expecting Megan for another 3 months!

We called to check on her a few times that evening to hear that she was doing well and just hanging out. We continued with our pumping schedule of every two hours and updates for family and friends.