Diarrhea - Mental and Otherwise...

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Yesterday, November 3rd, 2008 would have marked my entrance into my 3rd trimester if I were still pregnant. *sigh*

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Christian has been sick - we don't know if it's an ear infection or maybe the flu. His doctor prescribed antibiotics but warned me that if he did diarrhea, to stop giving it to him. The first day I gave him the med, he diarrhea'd. So we're just trying to ride it out. Unfortunately, I got sick too. So now, I can't even go see Lauren. I've been keeping Christian from school because of the runs and because I miss hanging out with my boy. Yesterday we went to the LA Zoo and he had a blast. Today, we just ran some errands and met daddy for lunch. He's been really whiny lately and throws a tantrum almost immediately. But, I don't even get mad or bothered by it anymore. I keep thinking, I'm just so thankful he's a healthy growing boy - that's all that matters.

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Before I got pregnant with Lauren, we started doing some church hopping in hopes of finding a good church to grow with. But there was always something we didn't like about the church -whether it was a lack of connection with the pastor, or the service time, or it was too big. I've been saying how I wanted to a church nearby, that started at a time where afterwards, we could feed Christian lunch in the afternoon and have him home in time for his afternoon nap and I wanted the church to be small.

About a week ago, I had a dream about our old pastor. He was the pastor who married us. He's the closest thing we have to a pastor since we've stopped going to church. We haven't seen him since Christian's 1st year celebration. And prior to that, it had been at least 3 years we had seen him last. He's still a pastor but is no longer a practicing one at a church - he works more on the administration side for churches. Anywhoo, he popped up in my dream and I dreamt that he was a practicing pastor again and he started a small church.

The following night, while Ben and I were in the NICU with Lauren, I had mentioned to him that I had a random dream about our pastor and explained the dream. I suggested that he call him and tell him about Lauren and ask if he could come by to pray for her. The next day, Ben calls him and guess what we find out? He just started a small church (about 15 ppl) in Glendale (where we live) and service starts at 11!

You think God's trying to tell me something?

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People have warned us about the roller coaster ride we were going to endure during this whole NICU experience - LOTS of UPS and DOWNS. Lauren's been doing relatively well. Things have been, to some degree, uneventful so I'm just waiting for something to happen. One person posted on a preemie message board that even though things have been going okay, she was waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. I completely know what she means.

But, Lauren's been slowly progressing.

She went from a breathing tube down her throat to just a nasal cannula (those nose prong tube things that flow oxygen into your nostrils) within a week - which is supposed to be really good.

She's been increasing her milk intake (Hallelujah to the fact that her little immature body is actually digesting food - to me, that's just insane that her body is doing that at her premature age) as well as the frequency.

She was having issues with some of the milk not being digested completely (called residuals) but that's slowly starting to improve (less and less residuals) as they alternated between breastmilk and special preemie formula.

She's had several blood transfusions (all successful).

Her jaundice has finally stabilized so she's no longer under a light with a mask on to cover her little eyes.

Her left eye was still fused shut but it finally opened.

She was needing assistance with her pooping so they administered enemas and she seems to be pooping okay so far.

A part of a chamber in her lung had closed up but luckily, it opened up again on it's own the following day.

She had an infection in her lung so the doctors put her on antibiotics and it's helped.

She still gets apneas and bradycardias (aka A's and B's) which is when she stops breathing and her heart rate drops. But at her age, that's supposed to be normal. She had an episode when I had changed her diaper for the first time. Sometimes, just the position they are lying in can cause A's and B's. They're that sensitive.

She's had 2 brain scans and so far, she has no brain bleeds. Keep in mind, how fragile tiny preemie 24 weeker bodies are at this stage. Their lungs are like tissue paper, their skin is almost gelatinous because it's so thin and the blood vessels in her brain is like rice paper. Yeah, it's that fucking thin. You hold her head the wrong way or give pressure and you could probably do some serious damage. So it's not unusual for her to develop a brain bleed down the road.

She went from 625 grams to now a whopping 760 grams! We'll be jumping up and down when she hits a whole kilo. A whole kilogram - 1000 grams - 2.2 pounds! I'll pick her up and think to myself, ahh...so this is what a "kilo" feels like. (excuse the warped sense of humor... i'm tired, i'm delirious, i'm sick and well, really fed up of being in this survival mode.)

But now, Ben just calls me from the NICU and tells me that they put her on a CPAP machine. It's a little mask thing they put over her nose and have continuous air pressure helping her breathe. How that's different from a nasal cannula, I don't know. All I know is that being on a CPAP machine is a step down from what she was on a day ago. The nurse said that her body wasn't getting rid of the CO2 well. I guess this is a part of the roller coaster ride.

I've been telling Ben that I'm so scared of hearing any type of bad news because so far, things have been progressing so we're on the incline part of the roller coaster - going up and up and up. But if you go up higher and higher, the drop is going to be a big, huge dip downwards. I'm scared that we're going to start the downward spiral of this whole thing.

So please, dear friends, dear random lurkers of my website and dear visitors doing searches with keywords such as preemie, NICU, preterm labor, etc., if you're reading this - PLEASE PRAY FOR LAUREN. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. When you wake up, Pray. Whenever you think about her during the day, PRAY. When you're eating, PRAY. When you're drinking, PRAY. When you're driving, PRAY. When you're going pee, PRAY. When you go to sleep, PRAY.

Thanks everyone.

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