Stumbling blocks

So you can probably guess from the title of this post we have had another setback. It actually occurred last weekend so let's get everyone caught up. Chrissy went on maternity leave last Thursday so she could move into the hospital and spend some time with Allison before bringing her home. Yes we had gotten the OK from the hospital to bring her home on Monday the 23rd. She was not up to full nipple feedings yet but we were going to bring her home with an NG Tube and supplement what she didn't nipple with the tube. Eddie had planned on taking the whole next week off work to spend at home with the girls.

However on Friday Chrissy noticed Allison was getting fussy, having trouble keeping her feeds down  and was generally acting like she had back before her surgery. So the doctors and nurses started checking her out and running tests. One was a blood sample for culture and screening which came back positive for Enterococcus. Its a bacteria that's in everyone intestines but she got some infecting her blood. She was not showing any other signs that she was infected so they thought it was a false positive and took another sample to test. In the meantime, just to be safe they started her on an antibiotic regime which lasts 10 days. The second sample didn't show the bacteria but they think she did really have it and her body fought it off. However they wanted to be sure it didn't spread anywhere else, specifically her spine. If it had gone there she would have needed 21 days on the antibiotics. So on Saturday they had to do a Spinal Tap to test and make sure but it came back clear and negative for the bacteria. In any case we have had to decrease her feedings and get her back on a PICC line to supplement her feeds with IV Fluids since she was not digesting well.

Over the last week Chrissy has been living at the hospital to help care for Allison, doing most of her feeds and learning the ropes of swaddling, feeding via tube, mixing milk and medicines, etc. She is also getting up every 2-3 hours to feed Allison for 30 mins, then hold her upright for another 30 mins, get her settled and then pump for 30 mins to make sure she has food. Suffice it to say, she is one tired mommy. No word on when she is coming home. We honestly wouldn't say until she finally gets here considering how many false starts we have had. Below are some pics from her at the hospital as well as some we got from the March of Dimes when we were back at Swedish.

March of Dimes shots at Swedish after surgery

Back at Evergreen this last week