Day 35, Evening

Well, we just had an exciting evening at the NICU. Hannah's oxygen saturation, while within reasonable limits, has been bouncing around lately, requiring a fair amount of tweaking by the nurses. They essentially increase the oxygen supplement when the saturation is low, and decrease it when the saturation is high. And her last few blood gas tests had shown high levels of CO2. Other tests hadn't revealed anything that could explain the fluctuating saturation or CO2 levels, so the doctor guessed it might be that the breathing tube had become gunked up with secretions. It had been in since birth, and they sometimes do get coated on the inside with mucus (yum!).

Anyway, we arrived for a visit this evening just as the doctor and nurses were deciding to replace the tube. This freaked Carla out a bit, so she sat in the waiting area and I watched the doctor remove the old breathing tube and give Hannah a chance to breathe on her own for a bit. Sure enough, the old tube had a bunch of yellowish stuff coating the inside (hope you're not eating while reading this).

Before inserting the new tube, they let Hannah breathe on her own for a few minutes just to see how she would do. Not really on her own . . . they had a bag valve mask and oxygen supply to make sure she got the oxygen she needed and to help take the first few breaths on her own. After a few minutes of assisted breaths, she started breathing pretty regularly on her own. But she was working a bit too hard at it to expect her to keep it up long term, so the doctor decided to put in a new tube and give a her another week to develop her lungs some more.

But for a few minutes there, I saw Hannah's face for the first time without a breathing tube in her mouth and without the tape holding it in. And she looked just like any other baby, except maybe smaller, and maybe a bit prettier, although there might be some slight bias on the part of the observer. I wish Carla could have seen that, but she would have been too distressed by the assisted breathing. Of course, this was the first visit that I didn't bring the camera, dammit, because we expected it to be a short visit, with Hannah already swaddled up for the night.

Anyway, they put the new breathing tube in, and her stats were already looking more stable within minutes. We'll call again in a few hours to see if the new tube fixes the fluctuations and CO2 levels.

After Hannah was bundled back up for the night, she opened her eyes and looked back at us when we talked to her. Carla and I were standing on either side of the isolette, with Hannah lying on her side, facing Carla. Carla said that each time I leaned over and spoke to Hannah from behind, Hannah's eyes moved up as if she were trying to look over her shoulder at me. That's more awareness than I would have expected from an infant that was supposed to still be in the womb for a couple more months. Amazing.

[EDIT: I just called the NICU for an update and Hannah's CO2 levels and oxygen requirements are already down a bit . . . exactly what we were hoping for from the new tube]