Pretty in Pink

Yesterday, Dr. in charge of the NICU met with us. The Dr told us our daughter is doing well and continues to be stable. The Dr said Nayeli still has some fluid in her chest and he said it is still considered normal due to the surgery. He said they are monitoring it and it is not affecting Nayeli's breathing or stats in general. They are hoping the fluid disapates in time and that they do not have to drain her again as this is a very painful procedure for our baby girl. The Dr said they are now feeding Nayeli 8cc's of Liz's breast milk every three hours. Nayeli has a tube inserted in her mouth which runs down to her tummy. The tube is raised above Nayeli's head and there is a food basin attached to the top of the tube. The nurse pours Liz's breast milk into the food basin and it drops into Nayeli's belly via gravity. Feeding is going ok, but the nurse said there is still quite a bit of food in her belly a while after feeding. So, they have been either suctioning the food back out and re-feeding her the food, or just feeding her new milk. They say this process can be slow but Nayeli is definitely eating portions of the food. Along with this, Nayeli is starting to take poops on a regular basis. These poops are of micomium variety and they expect these poops to turn to normal poops soon. At one point, the nurse had Nayeli's diaper off. Nayeli started a mincomium poop, which looked like a huge bubble gum balloon. The balloon expanded to to about an inch and popped like a poop balloon. Pretty funny stuff. Liz tried to get the camera to take of photo of the poop balloon, but it popped too fast.

The nurse also said Nayeli is starting to pass gas, which is also a good sign. Godfather fart master Alex Hidas was very proud of his god ddaughter's farting skills. The nurse was going to give Nayeli a bath last night. We were very excited and had the video camera rearin to go. The nurse said there was a slight split in Nayeli's blood gases (oxygenated blood). They monitor this by putting a device on her foot and hand, and measure the split between the two halfs of her body. The Dr came in and talked to us about pulmonary hypertension. We are very familiar with this term and it scares the crap out of us. The Dr said Nayeli has a very small amount of hypertension and they are not concerned about it at this point. As with the fluid, it is something they are monitoring. Based on this, the nurse decided not to give Nayeli a bath. We are hoping this happens tonight!

On another good note, nurse "Kim" this morning said Nayeli only needed two doses of .32cc's of morphine last night. This is very little and shows Nayeli is healing well and her pain appears to be diminishing. Our baby girl is quite the fighter and demonstrates this daily. She has started trying to pull at her ventilator tube. Last night, Liz and I were holding Nayeli's feet and also took turns putting our hands between Nayeli's right hand and her ventilator tube. Nayeli started hitting our hands because we were blocking her from getting to her ventilator tube. She is so strong and is able to knock our hands awayb with both her feet and hands. It was obvious she was getting pissed off at daddy and mommy and she started making her well known boo boo face. When Nayeli pulls at her ventilator tube too often, the nurse has been authorized to give her a small amount of Adavan to calm her down. We do not want our baby girl pulling her breathing tube out.

Liz and I decorated Nayeli's bed with all kinds of pink stuffed animals to include an elephant, a teddy bear, and a kitty cat. Breath of Hope gave us two pretty pink blankies and Liz was very excited to put the blankies in Nayeli's bed. One blankie is in the bed, and the other covers our baby girls feet and keeps them warm and snuggly. Cassi and Brian (Angel Elli's mommy and daddy) gave us a beautiful crib cross. The cross has a cute pink bow and asks God to protect our baby. The cross has been hanging in Nayeli's bed since day one! Thank you Breath of Hope and Cassi and Brian for the beautiful gifts we used to decorate our baby girls bed. I took a video of our latest nursery decor.

We will be going to the morning briefing pretty soon and will give you an update. Keep the prayers and support coming, we really need it as this is totally effecting our sleep. Several people have pointed out that we both look very tired.

Nayeli's surgery site