Three Pounds and Counting

Yes it is true. Our little girl has reached the 3 pound mark, in fact she has exceeded it. Addison is now weighing in at 3 lbs. 3 oz. In the last two days alone, the little porker has put on 70 g. She has officially doubled her size since she was born, can you believe it!! This is great news. As a result of her weight gain, Addison is now up to 19cc of breastmilk every two hours for feeds. Over the last few days however, the nurses have noticed that Addison seems to be having some spells (deep desaturations or brachicardyia episodes) as soon as she receives her feeds. She dips down really low on her saturation and heart rate levels and has a difficult time coming back up. We discussed this and realized that she is also coughing or having a bout of hiccups right around the same time. Nurse Kathy today thought that this may be some possible reflux in Addison's stomach on the feeds, which she burps up and then shuts down her breathing as a result of the pain. They decided to try an experiment and put Addison on a pump feed that fed the milk into her stomach over a longer period of time. This seemed to work a bit better, but she still had another episode. The doctor then decided to try Addison on continual feeds, which means she receives the 19cc of milk via a pump into her NG feeding tube over a period of 4 hours. This allows her to receive smaller amounts of milk over time, instead of the large volumes and gives her that extra period to hopefully aid in digestion. They will test this over the next 24 hours and see if there is any better results and if not we may have to look at some medicine for poor Addy's reflux, so she is in less pain. If her episodes of breathing are caused by this we want to stop the pain to help her breathe better and stop it from getting worse so she doesn't get turned off the feeding as she is obviously doing so well. Cross our fingers.

Addison had a big week this week, besides her weight gain the nurses tried "sprinting" with her. Sprinting is when the nurses take Addison off of her ventilator and put her on a nasal prong that gives her a high flow of oxygen. Addison has done this before for bath time, except with the sprinting the nurses attempt to do this for a longer period of approximately 1-2 hours to challenge the babies' breathing and their lungs. Addison tried her best, but had a bad spell while she was cuddling with daddy, and the nurses had to put her back into her isolet. The spell may have been part and parcel to Addison's reflux, however the sprinting was also a big challenge for our little girl and the nurses noted that she had a lot of desaturations after the fact on her regular ventilator. It was decided that this was too much for Addison to handle at this time and they will reassess her on Sunday to see if she can possibly try this again next week. Mom and dad are a little disappointed as they would love to see Addy succeed and get off her ventilation, but we have to understand it is small steps for Addison and at her own pace. We just want you healthy little one, and we understand you are putting up the best fight you can.

Addison also had her eyes tested on Wednesday, which is a standard test for babies at 32 weeks. Doctors are looking for any areas of the eyes that may show some damage to vessels or seperation of the retina from the wall of the eye. This is caused by either too much or too little oxygen given to these tiny little babies over the course of their stay in the hospital. The end result if there is damage, can be some form of laser surgery, partial to full loss of sight. Addison's test results came up as they would have expected for a baby her age, showing a group of vessels in both of her eyes that are growing faster than they should. The vessels are growing in a clump, and what the danger is is that they continue to do this in the same direction and at a fast rate, as opposed to growing out and around the eye for proper vision. The doctors advised that they will watch Addison closely because of this and do another eye test in the next few weeks to see the progression of these said vessels. Doctors advised that if they see a continuation of this type of growth and that the eye disease is progressing faster than it should then they will discuss options with us that may include laser surgery for Addison's eyes. We pray for Addy that it does not come to this and that her eyes can heal and the vessels grow properly over the next few weeks. God bless Addison you are a strong little fighter and we love you with all our heart and soul!