ASNN

it's been one week...

It's hard to believe it's already been a week since I last gave an update. I'm especially sorry to have left things in such a heightened state of concern; the last anyone knew, Vanessa could have been in the hospital for quite some time yet.

I'm happy to say that it's much, much better than all of that.

Abigail Anya[*] Green was born on December 20, 2007! She was 5 pounds 3 ounces, which is particularly healthy for a baby born six weeks early, and 18 inches long. Her APGAR (for those of you into that sort of thing) was 8/9 which, again, is awfully impressive for a premie. She's got a full head of dark brown hair, ten fingers and ten (long!) toes, and the cutest little face. (Update: pictures are trickling in at my Flickr site.)

Vanessa did so wonderfully through the whole thing, but it was definitely an ordeal. After ten days of sitting in a bed on magnesium sulfate, she was rewarded by waking up on the 20th at 6 AM in full-blown labor, 8cm dialated, and ready to go. Thirteen hours later (!), Abigail finally arrived, but Vanessa was pretty beat up. She lost a lot of blood, enough that the doctor who delivered Abigail was pretty concerned. Her blood pressure was hovering around 78/44 and she was shaking and weak. They tried to give her a blood transfusion, but she spiked a fever of 101 degrees after the first unit, so they couldn't give her any more blood. Her pressure eventually dropped to about 68/38 and it seemed like it was everything we could do to just hang on.

She was transferred to postpartum care with her low blood pressure and dangerously low blood count. (Her hemoglobin number was 5.6 (out of 12), at which point the hemotologist offered that his brother had died at a 4. Um, thanks for the info. :-/) She slowly started getting better, and the nurses even brought Abigail in to stay in the room with us. One big happy united family, we all responded very well. Vanessa was healing, Abigail was eating (and even jumped up five ounces!), and we were all happy, if a little tired.

On December 23, Vanessa decided to take a shower. A few minutes after the shower, she called out to me for help and I ran in to get her. I got there just in time to catch her as she fainted off the toilet. Holding her off the ground with one arm and pulling the emergency call rope with the other, I managed to hold on long enough for the nurses to start arriving. Vanessa was as white as a sheet, her head was rolling around limply, her eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was moaning (and sounding a bit to my untrained ears like she was about to swallow her tongue). We struggled to get her back into bed and get warm blankets on her. Her blood pressure had dipped again and she was only moderately responsive for a good while. Something more had to be done.

Her obstetrician called in a hemotologist, who ordered a series of blood tests, chest X-rays, and other consults. Finding nothing whatsoever, he ordered another two units of blood, only having the white blood cells filtered out. Lo and behold! Vanessa's body accepted the blood perfectly, her blood pressure and count numbers climbed (albeit slowly), and her physical health improved drastically. A day later, we were both sitting at home.

That's right, "both", as in, "the two of us". Abigail is, lamentably, still sitting in the nursery at the hospital. She developed jaundice (which is very common (about 80%) in premies) and pretty poor eating habits. After a day under the UV lights, her jaundice subsided, but she's still not eating terribly well. They've had to supplement her diet by feeding her through a tube in sittings where she doesn't eat her one ounce (now 1.5 ounces). It sucks (boo!), but isn't terribly uncommon, as babies tend to develop their strong sucking reflex around the 34th week. She's just passing that mark, so we're holding our breath that she'll start eating better again and will come home soon. That is our main (and, really, only) prayer at this point.

So that's all of that. We're very thankful for all of God's blessings thus far and hope He doesn't consider it presumptuous to ask for Abigail's continued healing. Thanks for all of your prayers, emails, calls and gifts; your concern and encouragement mean so very much to us. And Merry Christmas to you all (for one more minute)! :-D

[*] "Abigail" ("the joy of her father") because she will be a joy to her father every day of her life. "Anya" ("grace, or favor, or mercy") because she will be a reminder every day of God's grace... but even more of His grace in bringing this girl into my life after everything I've been through.

Posted by pcg at December 25, 2007 11:59 PM