Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Hello friends!

Verity, 5 days post-op, occupied by her early morning nap.

I’m going to apologize in advance for an abnormally discombobulated post; the days are really starting to merge together, and the timeline of everything is hazy. Plus, it’s been a couple days since we last updated. But truly, that’s a great thing which can easily be attributed to the fact that Verity is more like a typical baby and less like a NICU baby. She’s not hooked up to any medications (other than an occasional timed IV), so we can pick her up and move her as far as the cords of her heart rate, oxygen, and breathing monitors can stretch. We’ve started taking over diaper changes, feedings, and even the administrations of most medicines, and she started following the fairly predictable baby schedule of eat, sleep, poop, cry, repeat. Things are going really, really well.

Verity on her first Chinese New Year receiving her first lucky red envelope.

So, let’s take a few steps back. On Wednesday, Verity was pretty much the Cardiac Care Unit’s recovery champ – the cardiologists and nurses told us to prepare to take her home as early as Friday (today). Do you guys remember that only one week ago our little chunk was having her little heart repaired?? Insanity. The hospital had some tasks for us to complete before Verity’s discharge, including taking and passing an unofficial infant CPR class, and bringing in our car seat to make sure that Verity’s blood-oxygen levels didn’t dip below normal levels when she was sitting in it.

After getting those things done, Mike and I finally had a moment to freak out both out of excitement and pure terror at taking home a baby with a healing sternal incision. Mike is particularly concerned about how one takes care of a baby without constant monitoring; when he’s in the room, his eyes are generally trained on Verity’s monitors. Once we got over the terror, we booked it to Target to stock up on everything we had put off buying. Of course, after checking Amazon for prices, we only ended up leaving with a breastfeeding Boppy, some carbonated beverages, and a nursing bra. Hopefully the diapers from Amazon make it today…

Verity’s vitals are exceptional when she is sleeping. Mike’s eyes are practically always on this screen.

So yesterday was really Verity’s big day to shine. She was still receiving some medications, including:

• Lasix (a diuretic),
• Zantac (for her acid-reflux),
• Colace (a stool softener),
• a multi-vitamin, and,
• an occasional potassium drip (to replenish the electrolytes she loses from the diuretic).

However, none of these would prevent her from being discharged. In fact, upon discharge, she’ll receive a prescription to continue the Lasix. She really just needed to prove to the doctors that she could eat, breathe, and eat well. We finally made the big leap to breastfeeding for as many feeds as we were present in the hospital, and with the help of a nipple shield (TMI?), Verity took to feeding like a pro. Unfortunately, a couple feeds into the day, Verity started to have some problems coordinating eating and breathing. At the start of at least three of her feeds, her blood-oxygen levels tanked to below 50% (she should hover between 95 and 100%), and the nurses had to give her some oxygen to get her levels back up. If this happened one time, the doctors could maybe shrug it off as a blip, but since it’s happened fairly frequently, the doctors decided to delay Verity’s discharge until she figures out how to eat and breathe at the same time.

Despite her trouble feeding, she hit a lot of great milestones yesterday, too, specifically:

• Breastfeeding
• Gaining some weight
• Pooping frequently
• And generally being exceptionally adorable.

Verity is a fighter — a kungfu fighter.

Even though we ended up being delayed a bit, we are still way ahead of schedule compared to other babies with a similar condition. We were initially told to expect a stay in the hospital lasting about three weeks, and even with the struggle Verity has had coordinated eating and breathing, she’ll still be going home a week early. She is an overachiever, which she clearly gets from her mom.

At this point, we expect to have Verity home Monday. Her team of doctors think that we can fix her feeding/breathing issues by then, and Mike and I trust that they know what they’re doing. We’ll keep you all updated, but hopefully the next post features a cute-splosion of kitty and baby bonding.

Thanks again for your support!