Tuesday, August 2 -- Out of Isolation at Last!

Presents from the hospital to celebrate her three month birthday!

Audrey's bed was moved back into the big room with the other "long-term" NICU babies. I saw the preemie who had come in two days before Audrey was born, then a fragile tiny body in a dark isolette, now a sweet big healthy boy. I held Audrey as she slept, then comforted her through her pokes as they tested her blood sugar and sent more blood off for some other tests. I learned to my shock that there had been some major changes made to her feeding schedule as they continued to search for answers about her blood sugar issues. First, she had been returned to continuous feeds. Then, they had changed the mixture of formula to milk back to half and half, and sent some of my breast milk for testing. Apparently they wondered whether there was something wrong with the milk itself, whether fat content or whatever, since the discovery of the low blood sugar had occurred about the same time as we'd started giving her more breast milk. I know now that they were simply re-tracing their steps in order to find the source of the problem, but at the time this information was a blow, because I felt like we'd been kind of mucking our way up a giant hill toward home and a normal life, and could finally see the crest, only to suddenly slip back down the entire muddy slope. The one good thing about it was that ever since these changes her blood sugar reads had been normal, so they now only needed to poke her twice a day. Near the end of my visit, I was excited to meet Candi Gonzales for the first time-- she is a former Primary NICU mom, and her baby Si also had long-gap atresia when he was born two years ago. She is now the president of the Utah chapter of the EA/TEF, a national network of families who connect online to share information and support, and she has personally written us many fantastically helpful emails chock full of useful information. She was in the hospital for a doctor appointment for her son and it was a treat to meet her.