Pregnancy Community Chat Forum - Keep It Up Carly........

Well carly has had a good day today. She was at 23% oxygen mostly all day today which is great! (21% is room air) I've never seen her below 54% oxygen but is usually hanging around 65-95%. So 23% is just awsome! They weaned down on the vent a lot today as well. They may wean her nitrious oxide more tomorrow if her echo comes back good. After she's weaned off the nitrious oxide they will slowly start to weann her off the steriods (hydrocortizone). She seemed to do well with her care today. Her stats dropped as usuall but they didn't drop as bad. I also rubbed her little head today for about 5 mins and she tolerated the stimulation without any drops in stats. The nurse allowed me to turn her on her side and get her in a comfy position. She loves it on her side with a wash cloth rolled up between her knees with a gel pack helping to hold her legs together. I washed her hands because they had this awful guke on them!?!?! I like to be able to do little things for her, makes me feel more like a mommy! ( Thanks Shannon S. for telling me to ask the nurses to let me do her care! They have no problem with it!) So now everyday I make sure I'm there at her care times. I love to change her diapers, wash her face and take her temp. They also let me hold her up off of her bed just high enough for the nurses to change her linens. I know it sounds silly but it's the closest thing I have right now to mothering her. And I love EVERY second of it! She slept the whole time I was there (1pm-5:30pm) all except for when I told her bye....then she all of a sudden was completly awake and wide eyed!
She does have an infection in her blood stream. There are 2 different types of bacteria growing, one is e coli and the other they are still waiting to find out. They are treating with antibiotics but they are pretty sure the antibiotics will clear it up. There is a VERY small risk of the antibiotics causing kidney damage so they will doing routine renal panels to make sure her kidneys don't suffer any damage. They also did a spinal tap to make sure that there is no infection in her spinal fliuds, and so far nothing has grown in the labs....tomorrow around 5pm we will know for sure if we have a negative result.
They took her off the lasix today and also took her off her fentanyl the day before yesterday (Thursday). Her right lung seems to be looking some better.
So other than the infection in her blood she's doing really good! (They said it is quite common for preemies to get infections in their blood streams). So that's all I got for now. I'm sure there's more but I just can't think of it right now.