Tuesday, September 8, 2009

A Collective Sigh of Relief

Whew.

I called down to the hospital this morning, not expecting to hear anything better than "no change". Instead, I was told by Awesome Nurse Karen that Jane was down to 72%! Can I get a "Wah-hoo!"? Except when she was being messed with, her oxygen needs stayed in the 70s all day. It's the first time in, um, five days? that she's been down from 100%. And no one was hovering over her isolette today. I glimpsed the docs once, and talked to Joel briefly twice, and that was IT. YES!

The antibiotics may be helping, but really it's all about the ventilator. Amazingly Awesome Joel worked some serious magic yesterday, and today promised that he has no intention of changing those settings any time soon. He's just focusing on getting her gas levels where they should be. Which is a helluva lot lower. (I don't know what the docs may get up to, but Joel's the man to have on your side.)

So in honor of today's much better day, I think it's time we all had a little fun. Time for... an anatomy lesson! (Trust me, this is more fun than it sounds. Plus -- pictures!)

A long, long time ago, like five weeks ago, I was staring at Jane when suddenly I noticed, hey! Is it possible she has no nipples?
It was true.

See, she was worried about it, too! Now, I know it's a minor thing, but I was a little weirded out by this little omission. But I asked about it, and turns out babies don't develop nipples until around 34 weeks.

And wouldn't you know it? Today, the day before she hits 34 weeks, I saw



Nipples! The one on her right is hard to make out in this photo, but there's lefty, just beside the sensor.

Other things preemies don't have: hard ear and nose cartilage!


She'd just been turned onto her left side, and her poor little right ear hadn't unfolded yet. The cartilage is too soft still to retain its shape (but it's getting firmer now). I don't think I got a good picture of her nose when she was taken off CPAP, but basically she looked like a vampire bat.

Without the teeth and gigantic ears, that is.

9:30 UPDATE Tom just called down -- Jane had gotten down to 57% a little bit ago; she's in the low 60s now. They're still worried about the pneumonia, but everyone's relieved by this turn of events. Whew.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Sweetie, know you're sleep deprived...but, that vampire bat pic was a little over the top. Jane's going to come back to bite you for that down the road.. (honestly, no pun intended.) And, by the way, here's a million Wah-hoos. And, she's also not going to be lovin' that nipple thing. Oh,you guys are so going to be in for IT.....Cannot wait to be hearing all these stories from wonderful grandmother Dolores and equally wonderful grandfather Dick down the road. Looking forward. Lots of love, ann

R said...

Wah-hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

mommatosena said...

sigh......WWWWAAAAAHHHHOOOOOOO!!! I am glad that nipples have appeared and I did not notice a resemblance between sweet Jane and that icky looking bat....you your self have mentioned that the skill of seeing similarities between people isn't your thing....well you posted the proof today! LOL Keep the pics of the cute baby growing coming and leave out the wild life!

Cate said...

Wah-hoo! For numbers in 70s and nipples, too!

Rowena said...

That is amazing. Yay Jane.

And that nipple thing is truly fascinating. I had no idea.