Update

Yesterday at 11:00 am, our nurse noticed that Lia's breathing was labored and decided to take her from our room to the nursery to check her respiration levels and have the pediatrician look at her. After examining her and taking chest x-rays, the pediatrician decided that she needed to be admitted to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit.) The chest x-rays showed a few hazy spots in her lungs and the preliminary blood work showed elevated levels of CRP (normal is below 1, Lia's were about 5), which indicates an infection of some sort. They started her on two types of antibiotics to combat the possible infections we could be dealing with along with iv fluids. They are still letting me breastfeed her every 3 hours and we are supplementing with formula to make sure she gets enough fluid until my breastmilk actually comes in completely. Her second set of chest x-rays this morning showed that things had not gotten any better but they also hasn't gotten worse, so we are pleased about that. They also took her off her iv fluids and will just use the iv to administer the antibiotics now. Her full blood work up should have the results back tomorrow. That will tell us exactly what is going on and we can then make a treatment plan based on the results. We are praying praying praying for a negative result from those labs because that will mean that she will need 3-7 days on the antibotics to clear up whatever small infection she has, then she should be able to come home if all is well at the end of the week. A positive result means that something else is happening and the dr will then order a whole array of other tests to rule out different infections (one of which could be a spinal tap to check for meningitis, something we obviously really dont want Lia to have to go through.) For today, our plan remains the same, we will continue to feed every 3 hrs. I am also pumping in between feedings to stimulate my milk production and to have extra to feed her in the middle of the night so that Philip and I can sleep through one of the feedings and the nurses can just give Lia the milk I have pumped. It usually takes me about 4 pumping sessions to get enough for one feeding. Last night we went to the NICU at 2:15 and fed her, got back to our room about 3:45. I pumped until 4:15, then we slept for an hour. We were supposed to go back at 5:15 to feed again, but decided to sleep through that feeding and get up at 7:15 to go back for the 8:15 feeding. Getting 3 hrs of sleep as opposed to the 1 hr we had been getting between each feeding was just what we both needed to feel rested and ready to go again today! We are going to try that method again tonight. Please continue to pray for Lia. I know all the prayers are helping!! I will update again when we get her labs back tomorrow or if anything changes between now and then. Oh, also, I will be staying until Sunday, which is good news, it makes it much easier to feed her every 3 hrs when I just have to walk over from my room, I'm sure things will get complicated once I have to come up here from home next week. oh, well, cross that bridge when we get there! Talk to everyone again soon.