in the NICU!!!

The first couple days in the NICU were very tough for her. She was seen by every specialist imaginable. Her oxygen sats. were usual in the low 70's to the highest being 78. during feeds she would drop them very low and turn a dusky bluish color. most every thing that she ate (pumped breast milk) would come shooting back out of her nose in high volumes(very traumatic to see). They had to basically force feed her to get her to eat she would try to suck the bottle but would get tired after about 10 milliliters , and start gagging and choking. She developed a cough and they told us that it could be due to her aspirating her formula during eating or the nasal vomiting. The doctors decided to do a swallow study and determined that she was aspirating, due to her inability to suck, swallow, and breath all at the same time. They decided that it would be best to feed her through an ng tube so that she would at least get some food in her. Cardiology had examined her daily and confirmed the tetrology of fallot diagnosis we received while pregnant. We were told that she had, had them all scratching their heads trying to make since of her echo, but they later discovered a very large Ventricular Septal Defect (a hole between the bottom 2 pumping chambers of the heart), an Atrial septal Defect, a right sided aortic arch, and a very small under formed pulmonary artery, and a possible esopheogial ring (wher the arteries coming out of the heart loop around the esophages). It was decided that they would be able to wait until she was a little bigger to perform her open heart surgery. However she did have to have her first surgery at 3 weeks old to fix a hernia, and place her G-button (feeding tube). after a week recovery from surgery she was considered to be well enough to go home with us (one day before her 1 month birthday ). We had to stay 2 nights in the NICU just learn how to care for our baby girl, and take a CPR class. We were happy, excited and TERRIFIED all at the same time.