Friday, the 13th...

Day 6

As today was a somewhat quiet day, I'll flashback a little.  Scroll down for updates for Matthew, and cue the black and white sequence....  Today is Friday, the 13th.  It is also 16 weeks since we first ruptured.  This pregnancy has been difficult from the start, not including the two miscarriages we had previous to it.  We had a bleed at 5 1/2 weeks where we thought we lost the baby (at the time we thought it was just one), and the bleed continued to show up on ultrasound until our 15 week OB appt, where it looked like it had resolved.  It was at that appointment that we were told we were "in the clear."  A little more than 24 hours later (at 15 weeks 1 day), Sean and I were out at dinner (a new local BBQ place) finally allowing ourselves to talk about testing out having 3 baby/child's seats in the car and how we were going to do that this weekend.  As we finished dinner, at approximately 7:15pm I had a weird feeling, almost as though I was bleeding again.  I told Sean I needed to go to the bathroom to see what was happening.  When I got up we both knew something was very wrong.  My shorts were soaked.

At the hospital we confirmed that Baby A (later Alexander's) water had broken.  We were advised to terminate the pregnancy as we were too far from any point of viability and we would likely go into labor within 48 hours.  Our OB wanted us to stay in the hospital as the risk of infection was so high, but trusted us to go home.  That weekend was probably the worst of our entire lives.  We had two babies that still had beating hearts, one that was totally fine, and we were being advised to end the pregnancy we had worked so hard to achieve.  We went to Yale the next day, and back to Norwalk hospital on Monday, and ultimately decided we were going to journey on.  

Every Friday since then has been a reminder of when the water first broke.  As Fridays are normally when we get take-out, we crossed the bbq place off the list of contenders as we now deemed it "jinxed."  As we are now home from the hospital, we are again left with the decision of what to get for Friday night dinner.  Other options are also off the table, but that's for another blog entry.  We shall see what tonight's decision ends up being....

The Good

Today was a stable day for Matthew, which makes it a good day.  His feeds were increased again to 4.5 cc of breast milk every two hours.  We are hopeful that this allows him to grow big and strong.

Today was the first day I visited Matthew not as a patient.  We drove up around lunchtime while Christopher was still in school.  We dropped off our breastmilk and said hi to Matthew, then got a quick bite from the Cafeteria.  After 6 weeks of hospital food, the variety and quality of the Cafeteria seemed top notch!  When we came back down Matthew was still sleeping on his side, with one leg out.  He woke up a couple of times and looked at us, which is always nice.

The Bad

The doctors gave Matthew his pressure test today, but (as we knew was a possibility) he demonstrated he was not ready to be off the vent.  The reason is that he still has too many apnea episodes where he forgets to breathe.  When I asked the doctor if it was OK that he stays on the vent, she said (very honestly) "Well, it's better for him to be off the vent."  But she did also caveat that it is early.  As we learned quickly, NICU doctors are not ones to sugar coat things, which at least helps us to trust them.

His weight shows a dip, but we think it is possible that the spike we saw was not real.  So it looks as though he is not yet gaining weight.  Hopefully he is not losing weight in a way that is unexpected.  He is getting even more breast milk now so fingers crossed he will get beefier.

The Ugly

Luckily I have no ugly to report today.  We are praying that continues throughout the weekend.