Change of Plans

Monday, February 21, 2011

Tonight we planned to "room in" with Keilin to get used to her noises and prepare ourselves for her homecoming.  For most new parents a baby's homecoming is so soon after birth.  For us it was almost a month, but we STILL felt totally unprepared!  Yet, at the same time, we had so much more practice with our babies than most first-time parents.

However, when we came in this morning for the 9am feeding we were greeted with some not so good news...  Keilin started to have some blood in her diapers.  When we looked with the nurse, we could see what we thought might be an anal fissure, so that could have been the culprit.  We weren't too disturbed.

Now, the doctors started to talk about Dominic being able to go home Wednesday!  Wow x2!

Since our nurse seemed really fun, we brought in hand/footprint tins to the noon feeding, so we could capture the babies' tiny prints.  However, upon our return for the feeding, Chris went to changer Keilin's diaper and found a lot of blood.  Yikes...  The nurse was concerned - we could tell...  Suddenly things started to change quickly.  They stopped Keilin's feedings, did x-rays, and ran some IVs for fluids.  They started to talk about preemie's sensitive digestive tracks, allergies to cow's milk, and I think this is when we started to hear about Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) http://www.seattlechildrens.org/medical-conditions/digestive-gastrointestinal-conditions/necrotizing-enterocolitis/?src=gg_surgery_necrotizing-enterocolitis&gclid=CN_G4JKGjqkCFRFOgwod2xmIqw

Needless to say, our tentative excitement to have our babies coming home was twisted.  The doctor was pleased with Dominic's progress, but we were scared about what was happening with Keilin.  Sadly, Keilin grew unhappier as they decided to continue the suspension of her feedings and check her progress via x-rays in the morning.

We asked that Dominic be started on the NeoSure dry formula, so we knew if he had any issues. We didn't "stay in" tonight since there wasn't anyone to bring home quite yet.