Update after Blood Transfusion

Farrah's blood transfusion on Thursday went smoothly and she had quite a bit of weight gain afterwards, as is expected after receiving blood. She is holding her weight at over two pounds, which we are thrilled about. They have been giving her a diuretic to make sure that she does not retain too much extra fluid, and her urine output has been good. When they did Farrah's labs on Friday, her blood gas numbers were good but not great, so the NICU doctor decided to wait on trying to remove her breathing tube until today (Saturday). The doctor wanted to wean her oxygen on the ventilation tube and see how she does. We honestly don't understand how all this works, and hopefully today's day nurse can help us understand it better. They are going to do another blood gas test at 8 am and see if it has improved at all. If it has improved, the plan is to remove her breathing tube and replace it with a less invasive nasal cannula. We pray that her lungs are strong enough to adjust to this change. When I called her nurse this morning, she said that Farrah needed to go up on her oxygen this morning, so I will be interested to hear what the NICU doctor has to say when we go over there later. Ray's sister is visiting right now, and she loved meeting her niece yesterday. She will be here through Sunday night.

Good news - we went to my 2-week incision check up at the OB office, and the resident that followed me in the hospital met with us and said that the incision site is looking great. I can start driving again, and she is very encouraged by the progress I have been making in terms of my energy level. She also wanted to know how Farrah is doing and we were happy to show her some photos, including the one where I got to hold her for the first time. I will meet with her again one week before I am scheduled to go back to work in August.

When I am up in the middle of the night pumping, I often search online for references to preemies and the NICU journey. I came across a series by Pampers called "Love Comes Early" that follows a few different families through their NICU journey. One family's story in particular stood out to me. Their baby girl was born at 25 weeks. Her mother had hodgkins lymphoma in 2002 and pulled through it and later had a baby boy who is now 3 years old. The mother reflects on being sick before and now having a premature baby and says "I honestly feel like strong people sometimes are given really hard tasks, and somehow we get through them." Her statement really resonated with me this morning. It is so encouraging to watch stories like her family's and to know that Farrah will be home with us one day and all of this will be a distant memory and she grows and moves on with her life.

Even though Farrah has a PICC line in her arm, blood transfusions cannot go through them, so she needed to get a separate IV. The nurse could not get an IV into her arm, so they needed to put the IV in her head. We were told that this is common for NICU babies even if it looks a little scary. The photo below shows the blood going into Farrah's IV. Ray has pointed out that both his wife and now his daughter are blood recipients and it is important to him to start donating blood regularly. For those who don't know, I am a huge advocate of blood donation and work with local blood banks to get the word out about the importance of blood donation. When I was sick 10+ years ago, I received a whopping 987 units of blood products during my three month hospital stay. What I want is to do what I can to ensure that the blood is there for others when they need it, just like Farrah did.



On Thursday night, my book club suprised me with a potluck celebration at our monthly meeting. Ray was in on the surprise and did not give anything away. It is so nice to have such a great group of local friends who are supporting us through everything we are going through. We got to take home all the leftovers too! They are taking turns providing meals to us, which are helping out tremendously. We received some gifts at the potluck, including a pink teddy bear (my first teddy) that has been added to Farrah's bed. It feels so good to know that the bear is there representing all the love and support coming from that group.

Thank you for the continued emails, texts, letters, packages, and phone calls reminding us that you are all out there thinking of us, praying for us, and supporting us! It means more to us than we could ever express.