Day 13 - Getting Better/IV drama

I'm sitting in Chloe's room right now while the third nurse tries to get an IV into her fragile little body. They had stuck her four times before I had to leave her side to make room for a third nurse to come in and try. I'm not sure how much good I was doing by her side, anyway. I was cupping her little head and humming to her but I was getting upset and had a hard time humming. Plus, my palms were getting sweaty and I kept having to lean back so that my tears wouldn't fall into her isolette.

I questioned the doctor and nurse practitioner, who happened to be coming by on rounds during these IV attempts, and they told me that they try to keep IV's in place until they go "bad." A bad IV means that it has come out of the vein and the fluid goes into the tissue around her vein instead of into it. Tiny baby veins are so delicate that IV's don't last super long. I was here for the first IV removal this week, though, and know that it had NOT gone bad. The nurse just took it out because she thought Chloe wouldn't need it again. We're on her third IV this week and I'm less than pleased. It's a difficult balance to express displeasure to the people caring for your baby, as well as, appreciation and respectfulness of all that they are doing. I think I pulled it off well, but come to think of it, I suppose I feel it.

We really are lucky to enjoy the wonderful quality of care that Chloe receives. And I'm thrilled that they are finally giving us good reports again. She seems to be improving quite a bit!
-The dopamine and hydrocortisone seem to be working well and they hope to start weaning her off the dopamine soon.
-She's urinating quite a bit.
-Blood pressure is up.
-O2 levels are up and so they're able to lower the O2 on her respirators.
-White blood cells are down so we think the antibiotics are working (even though we still haven't gotten a confirmation of infection).

Now we want to pray that:
-they can sucessfully wean her off the dopamine (they can try feedings again once she's weaned)
-her kidneys are getting adequate blood supplies to continue appropriate urine output
-her stomach gets adequate blood supply in preparation to digest my yummy milk that they will give her soon
-she is protected from pain and discomfort as the nurses do all they can to care for her
-the antibiotics continue to work and she is protected from future infections

Note: They finally got the IV in. It's in her head and looks pretty bad but they couldn't get it in anywhere else. I hope it hurt less going into her head, anyway. Let's also pray that this IV lasts a long time and they don't have to invade on her poor little arms and feet again any time soon!





Here's my little darling snoozing with her new IV in her little head. She's snuggled up with her snoodle doll. I wear it inside my shirt and then bring it to her so she can snuggle up next to it.