Rough road ahead for Baby Lourdes

Today I'm grateful for...
Being surrounded by good friends and being able to discuss the future with them
Watching Baby Lourdes and seeing her grow
Taking a moment for myself and mow and trim the lawn
The warm, sunny weather
Feeling good

The Honeymoon is over! As I came to the NICU this morning I saw the concern on my wife's face. Baby Lourdes is now on a special ventilator that she can tolerate better. The chest x-rays (taken every 4 hours) had revealed she had developed a Pheumothorax in her left lower lung, and was having great difficulty with getting enough oxygen. After some tests and discussion amongst the doctors, it was decided that Baby Lourdes would need to have a chest tube placed to releave the pressure she had in her chest. Lulu and I consented to the procedure, and we thought it best to leave as they placed the chest tube into her little body.

We spent the next hour talking as we as a couple with three (now four) kids rarely get to do. Of course the most dominent subject was how we could be with Lourdes as much possible. We also talked about when Lulu might return to the office and what her schedule might look like? In 24 hours she would be discharged from the hospital, and though she never said it, I could tell that she wanted to stay and be as close to Lourdes. Another important subject was how we needed to be there for the older boys. In a time of crisis you have a tendency to forget that we have three wonderful boys at home that can easily get neglected. Even with family and friends to help us during this stressful time, the boys need their Mom and Dad, so we scheduled our lives to include them as much as possible.

Lulu had been having some issues with her incision from the C-section. It had been healing properly, and to close her incision they had used staples. The area looked as if it was getting infected and very red and irritated looking. We surmised that because Lulu had a allergy to Nickel that possible once the staples were removed the area would improve? Yeah, this afternoon the nurse removed the staples form the incision site. We just know that the healing would improve by tomorrow!

We returned in the evening to Baby Lourdes side. She had been sedated and looked quite comforable even with the myrid of wires, tubes, and such dangeling from her. Not much changed with her prognosis at this time, wait and see if the chest tube relieves the chest pressure, and hope that your lungs mature sufficiently so she can one day breat on her own?

Again we said our prayers, and begrudgently left her to the care of the hospital team.