January 9

Elsie had a brain ultrasound and an EKG done on her heart today. The EKG was done because she has a heart murmur, or a PDA. This is extremely common in preemies. There is a small vein coming off the aorta of the heart that during a typical full-time childbirth, will close on its own. It generally does not close by itself when the baby is premature. The PDA can be treated and closed by medications, or by surgery. The medications, obviously, are the first choice. But, before you can administer the medication for the PDA, they needed to do an ultrasound on her brain to evaluate how much bleeding is going on in there. The nurse practitioner explained it all to us and I mostly understood; something about how you can't give her the medication for the PDA if there is too much bleeding in the brain. We will find out the results from both procedures tomorrow.

She continues to be stable but has needed a bit more oxygen, due to the heart murmur. The bilirubin lights are back on, to help prevent jaundice. The nurses explained that everything in the NBICU is always up and down. She'll have good days and bad days. She'll go on and off of the ventilators, and same with the lights. They have stopped feeding her milk, as she wasn't digesting it very well, but they'll try again soon.

I changed her diaper and took her temperature today. The temperature-taking wasn't so bad, but changing the diaper was scary. There are so many tubes and cords and monitors to work around.

Here is a picture that I took yesterday. You can see the bruising across her nose and on her head. It's actually improved quite a bit. And her skin is not as red and see through as it used to be. Her eyes are still fused shut. Sleep well tonight, sweet baby.