Introduce your VIP (Very Important Preemie!)

[myra]

What a gorgeous little boy, Fliss. Glad you came boy to share some pics

 

[MommyCandice]

such amazing stories, such fighters these little ones are, I don't personally have a premie but I am planning to become a NICU nurse.

 

[Meli_H]

Hi everyone!

I’d like to introduce my miracle VIP. His name is Xzavier Vincent. He was born on 9/27/13 at 23+1, weighed 1.7 lbs and 12 inches. Tomorrow he will be 14 weeks old and he weighs 4lbs 7 oz. He is still at a Level 3 NICU and will be for a while longer. Unfortunately he developed the dreaded NEC infection and had intestinal resection surgery at 4 weeks old. He has a colostomy bag and they cannot do the intestine reconnection surgery until he reaches at least 5 pounds. Yesterday he surpassed 2 major milestones: his oxygen cannula was removed, so he is requiring no oxygen assistance, and is PICC line was removed. YAYY!

Here is a pic from when he was 1 day old side by side from his 11 week photo, and a couple of recent photos.

 

[sunnylove]

Congrats Meli! Wow, 23+1, what a little fighter!!! Isn't it the best feeling when their oxygen is removed?! Especially for your little guy, most 23 weekers are on oxygen months after they go home! That's great! Here's hoping he comes home soon

 

[Meli_H]

Sunny,

Yes we are just so excited and proud. He is a warrior and is so strong. He never ceases to amaze his doctors. I firmly believe that if he hadn't have developed NEC he would be going home right about now, way in advance of his edd.

congrats to u, and all u ladies here. While on bed rest I devoured these threads and clung to hope because of the experiences you all shared.

 

[Skadi]

Congrats Meli! What a strong little fighter you have! I hope his surgery goes well and you can bring him home soon.

 

[Meli_H]

Hi Skadi,

Thank u. Yes, we have faith that he will come through just fine. I will keep u guys updated once they finally decide to go through with the surgery.

 

[PandaMao]

Hi ladies. I figure I should introduce my little VIP in here. Emerson Rose, was born on February 4th, 2014 at 9:50 am by c-section. She weighed 2 lbs 8 oz and was 14 3/8" long. She was only 30 weeks 4 days, but she had to come out due to sudden onset of severe preeclampsia and IUGR. I had a doctor appointment on Friday, hospitalized on Sunday, and she was born on Tuesday. My blood pressure was 205/96 by the time I got to the hospital and I had swollen up like a balloon. I was given steroid shots to develop her lungs and put on magnesium sulfate to keep my pressure down and delay delivery as long as possible. Early Tuesday morning the decision was made to do a c-section as soon as possible when my kidneys started shutting down, my lungs were filling with fluid, and my bp was slowly creeping back up.
My little girl has had a pretty rough start to life, but I know many have had it far worse, so I am thankful she isn't any worse off. They put her in CPAP initially, but she wasn't strong enough so on the ventilator she went. She also developed some sort of lung infection which they think was pneumonia. She recovered from that about a week later after antibiotics and she also received 3 doses of surfactant. They moved her to CPAP again. During this time they also noticed a heart murmer. They discovered she had a very significant PDA and restricted her fluids to encourage it to close up. Because of that she grew very slowly. They haven't heard the murmur at all the past week and a half so they think it has closed up now. They've been moving her feeds up and is now on 28ml every 3 hours and she's started to put more weight on. During this time she was having bradys and occassional apneas, but she seemed to be breathing just fine so they moved her to high flow nasal cannula. She started having more bradys so after a few days they moved her back to CPAP. She's only been having a few less bradys a day so the doctor doesn't think there is much benefit to her being on CPAP and is talking about moving her back to the cannula in the next few days.
Emerson 1 month 2 days old actual and 34+5 corrected. She weighs 3 lbs 6 oz now and is 15 1/2 in long now. She's improving every day (with the occasional setback) and I'm looking forward to the day we can take her home. I know it's still going to be quite awhile because she hasn't done any of the things yet that she needs to to go home. She is still in an isolette and they haven't tried bottle feeding her yet because she's still on CPAP. I'm hoping once they put her back on the cannula that that is something they will try. Sorry for the novel!
Now for some picture spam

Spoiler

Just moments after birth while still in the OR
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0421_zpsec90bbdb.jpg
Getting to touch her for the first time
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0460_zpsbd958470.jpg
"Suntanning" while everyone else gets to deal with a snowstorm
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0439_zps8886878f.jpg
Second time getting to hold her (5 days old at this point)
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/B13428C8-9525-42B7-89CE-1DF07B8F4511_zpsbkt109tr.jpg
Comforting her during care time
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/500E0338-B282-4C02-86DA-4F2A8451CE37_zps8qtji6qq.jpg
Daddy holding her for the first time (1 1/2 weeks)
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0504_zpsf55a1738.jpg
Holding my hand
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0553_zps34e01b02.jpg
Peekaboo!
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0590_zpsd006482f.jpg
1 month old!
https://i1371.photobucket.com/albums/ag302/emersonrose2014/IMG_0623_zps2446ae0f.jpg

 

[BabyMaybe917]

I'd like to introduce my beautiful and amazing preemie. This is Ellie Louise born at 25w5d. Ellie weighed 1lb 15oz at birth. Today she is 10 grams away from being back to her birthweight. She is on cpap anywhere from 26-33% oxygen the last couple of days.

She continues to amaze us and the doctors every day. My full birth story is in my journal (link below).

The first pic is of her ventilated right after birth.
The second pic is our first kangaroo care.
The third pic is my favorite! She's just so beautiful and happy.
The fourth pic is of her opening her eyes. They were still fused at birth and she's still shy about opening them.

 

[sunnylove]

SUCH beautiful babies, Panda and BabyMaybe!!! They are gorgeous!

 

[PandaMao]

Thank you Sunnylove. Baby maybe, I love the third picture of your little girl. She looks so happy there. She's beautiful.

 

[WantingABubba]

All your babies and you girls/guys are so amazing! Fighters x

 

[mamaduke]

Hey ladies! I've been a lurker in the past, and I am learning a lot from you.

DS1 was a full term baby, but DS2 is considered a late term preemie according to his pediatrician based on a few physical traits (low weight for a 2nd baby, very flexible, peeling, missing baby fat to name a few).

DS2 (Owen) started dancing on my cervix around 36w+3, causing a bloody show. After talking with the OB on call, I was on moderated bed rest until 37w with hopes of making it to term. O decided to partially break my waters at 37w, which led to an induction and fast labor. He came out at 5lb 10oz.

I figured that since he was released on time that he was considered a term baby. But we went to the pediatrician on Monday for our first followup, and that's when she mentioned the term "late term preemie", which honestly explains a lot about O.

The challenges I'm facing are due to feedings. He took to BFing like a champ, but once my milk came in, we had to switch to bottles and pumping for a lot of feeds - too much supply for my little-mouthed wonder. So he's still getting breast milk and does feed from me after pumping, when the breasts are soft enough for him to maintain his latch.

So here's Owen, my late term preemie:

 

[myra]

Congrats mamaduke! What a sweet boy

 

[DollPosse]

Our Twin A named Vivienne born at 2lbs,10oz

 

[DollPosse]

Parker

 

[twin4life27]

Hi all! I've been a lurker for quite a while and am finally deciding to post and introduce my LO, Julia Grace, who was born on March 25, 2014 at 1:35pm, weighing 4 lbs, 15 oz and 17.5 inches long. She was 34+2.

I had my work baby shower on Tuesday, March 18th at 33+2. Showed all the cute stuff to DH that night before bed, since he was leaving the next morning very early for a work trip. I remember going thru it all with him and commenting on how small everything was! We went to bed that night feeling good but not looking forward to DH's trip, since he has such anxiety about flying.

I woke up at midnight to use the bathroom and didn't feel quite right. I can't say that I was having contractions but something about them (maybe Braxton Hicks) just felt off. I laid in bed for about an hour paying attention to them when I suddenly felt the urge to go to the bathroom again. When I stood up I felt some leaking, so I RAN to the toilet and just BARELY made it before the big gush. My first thought was "Oh shit."

I called my OB from the bathroom and she said to go in to check if it was my waters, so I woke up DH and told him we needed to go to the hospital, and that I had a feeling he wasn't going on his work trip. It took us nearly an hour to get out of the house because I couldn't even think straight to pack anything. I had no idea if I was going to be staying in the hospital or coming home.

When we got to the hospital and they checked me, sure enough my water had broken, but I wasn't having any contractions (no idea at this point if I was dilated since they didn't want to check me and risk infection). But since my water had broken, they told me I wasn't leaving until LO was born, however long that would take. They started me on antibiotics and gave me my first shot of steroids to help her lungs develop. They kept me in L&D for several hours on the monitors, but once they started getting busier with actual deliveries, they moved me to antipartem. I stayed there for 5 more days on strict bed rest. At this point I was 33+3, and my OB wanted to try and get me to 34 if possible before inducing.

On Sunday, March 23rd, they moved me back to L&D and started my induction at 8pm. I was terrified of being induced because I wanted so badly to have a drug-free delivery, but LO's health was more important at this point. They gave me Misoprostol to try and get contractions started and get me dilating, since I hadn't started yet. Then Monday morning they started pitocin. We did pit all day Monday with no progress on dilating even though I was having mild contractions, so monday night, they turned off pit and gave me more Misoprostol and let me sleep (yeah right!). Contractions were getting stronger at this point so I didn't sleep very well that night.

At 8am Tuesday, March 25th, they started pit again, and I begged for an epidural. I was still only about 1cm dilated, but I couldn't handle the contractions any more. Once the epi was in, I immediately fell asleep.

At 1pm, they came in and checked me and I was fully dilated, ready to go. Everything became a whirlwind at that point. My OB told me LO was going to come out quickly because she was small (measuring 5 lbs) and they were going to put her on my tummy, clean her off, let DH cut the cord, move her to the warming table to be cleaned off and assessed by the neonatologist, and then be taken straight to the NICU.

I pushed through probably 3 contractions, maybe 5 minutes and maybe 9 pushes, and she was out. Once they got the cord unwrapped (twice around her neck, and once around her arm), she started screaming, I was SO relieved! They did exactly what they said they were going to do once she was out, except once she was all cleaned up and swaddled, they brought her to me and let me hold her for about 10 minutes before they took her to the NICU. I felt this was a very good sign, since she was breathing 100% on her own and didn't need any help at all with it!

They took her to the NICU with DH, while they finished with me. When my OB delivered the placenta, she told me the cord was in the membranes (not where it should be). They have never used the term "velamentous cord insertion" so I'm not sure if that's what I had or not, but even though LO was early, if I did in fact have that, I'm glad she was early bcs otherwise she may not have survived. The only thing they told me at my 6 wk check-up was that the placenta was small. They did mention that the cord was in the membranes but that was it.

Anyway, LO spent 13 days in the NICU, learning to suck/swallow/breathe and regulate her temp. She did have one feeding that took longer than they allow so they inserted a tube but never had to actually use it. She pulled it out herself about 2 days later, said "no thanks!"

She's been home with us now for 6 weeks and she's doing so well! She was born 4 lbs 15 oz, 17.5 inches long, and at her last dr appt, she was 7 lbs, 3oz and over 19 inches! That was a few weeks ago, so I'm thinking she's at least 8 lbs now! We are currently working on trying to transition from bottle-fed expressed milk to EBF (advice welcome!).

I'll upload pics once I figure out how!


whew! sorry that was so long!

 

[twin4life27]

Cuddle time with her bili shades on

 

[twin4life27]

Julia on Mother's Day

 

[2Pups4Kids]

Julia on Mother's Day

Aw congrats! She's adorable