Waiting patiently...

So, Maggie didn't get to come home on Sunday. The hospital won't release her until she has been off of all meds for at least 48 hours. She was on Morphine for almost a month, so it is taking some time to wean her off of it. She will go a day without it and be halfway there to going home, but then will need something so its kind of like taking one step forward and two steps back. I was really disappointed at first, but now I just want her to be feeling good when she comes home so it can be a nice experience, instead of her screaming and being uncomfortable and unconsolable. They did the morphine wean really aggressively with her, so she had a last dose of it last thursday but morphine has a half life of 2 to 3 days so she was doing really great and then Sunday morning, the day she was set to come home, they gave her a small dose to help her get through the withdrawals. So I am trying my best to be patient!! I am starting to get really sick of the hospital, but at least the end of her stay there is in sight. I am just thankful that she is doing so well. She eats great and is generally a really happy baby. She likes when grandma reads her stories and LOVES to be held! So, that is the update for now! :)

Hangin' in there!

Miss Maggie continues to improve and will be home in no time! She is on a new ventilator that is more like normal breathing, and her oxygen is down to 37%. The nurses tell me they want to have her off of the ventilator within a week or so and then I will FINALLY get to hold her! She may have to bring the oxygen home with her, which is fine by me! Her lungs are still a little hazy in some spots but she is doing really good. This week has been so amazing, she's had such a huge turn around from where she was at and I couldn't be more pleased and thankful for all the prayers from friends and family and for the TLC from all of her amazing nurses. Last night they told me that she may be getting moved to a different room since she isn't really needing one on one care 24/7 from a nurse. She will most likely be sharing a nurse with another little one, maybe 2. She has been taken completely off of 2 heart meds and all of her other ones have been reduced significantly. I'm just hoping she will keep all of this progress up! They are letting her wake up a little at a time and last night was the first time I saw her alert and awake without the nurse worrying about it and without her blood pressure getting high. She was just looking around wondering when she gets to come home! It was great to see her wiggling and moving, but still comfortable. I'm so proud of her, she has had to deal with things already that very few adults have had to, she is so tough and I can't wait to bring her home and just hope she'll never have to go back there. I'm so thankful for all of the amazing and caring nurses and doctors at Primary Childrens and so thankful for my family and Codie's family for supporting us through all of this, I don't know what we would do without them!

Continuing on...

So when they decided to put her on the ECMO it was really scary, I was still trying to grasp how this all happened and why. But on Thursday afternoon she had the procedure done. The hospital gave us a family room to wait in and it was so nice to be away from all the noise and people in the NICU waiting room. After and hour went by that felt like an eternity the surgeon came in and told us that everything went great and we could go in to see her. Codie and I went in and saw these huge tubes going in and out of her neck and it was just awful. She was totally sedated and also on a paralyzing med so that she wouldn't wiggle and move the tubes. She was a trooper for sure! It was scary to see yet another thing hooked up to her, but we were told that this was a last resort and they wouldn't have decided to do it if there wasn't another option. So if this didn't work, then there was nothing else they could do for her. So she made lots of improvements as Friday and Saturday came and went and even though it was small improvements it was still really exciting and encouraging. Sunday night was tough, for some reason her blood pressure would get so high from nothing really at all and then anytime the nurses had to mess with her at all, even for a little thing, she would get super irritated and start squirming and opening her eyes a little bit and it would break mine and Codie's hearts because she looked so uncomfortable. The hardest part was that there was nothing we could do to comfort her. Touching her would only make it worse so we had to just stand there and watch. But she kept fighting through the night and stayed stable and Monday her xrays were looking good and I was able to take her temperature which was really exciting for me since that meant I got to lift her arm up! The most contact I'd had with her since I had her. Tuesday morning my mom had called to check on her and they said nothing had really changed, she was doing good. Then at 3 in the afternoon the nurse practitioner called me and told me that she was doing great and they wanted to take her off of the ECMO machine! I was so excited and gave my consent over the phone so they could get started. My mom and I got to the hospital around 4 and waited a short time and then were able to go in and see her right after they finished the surgery. They said she took it like a champ and everything went perfect. I was so thrilled to see that wretched machine out of there and those tubes out of her little neck. She was sleeping soundly in la la land not feeling a thing and looked comfy and I could not have been happier! Her oxygen was down to HALF of what it was at before she was on the ECMO and I was so glad. She was over the hump now and it brought great peace to my mind. Though she isn't completely out of the woods yet, I feel so much better and sleep a little easier at night. The NICU nurses always talk about how baby girls are stronger and fight harder than the boys that are brought there. So we've adopted the motto "Fight like a girl!" from the Fight for the Cure campaign! All of the prayers, messages and support are greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!!!

WOW! So I am totally amazed at how many people want to know what's going on with Mags. I've had a lot of friends and family wanting to know how labor and everything went and the full story, so I'm going to try to remember the best I can, it all feels like it happened so long ago! And I have to apologize ahead of time about my punctuation, I can type a lot faster if I don't capitalize everything or remember all of my apostrophes, etc! So be patient with me. :)

So my last dr.'s appointment was on January 13 and my midwife, Eve, and I decided to do an induction on Friday January 14th, the next day! Maggie was more than ready to make her appearance and Codie and I were ready for her to come too! The anticipation was killing us and we couldnt have been more excited. So at 3 the next day we went in and got settled in the room and at 4:30 the nurse came in and administered the pitocin to get the contractions going. I didn't feel any start up until about 6 or so, all the while watching TV with my mom, dad, and Codie. I was able to stand the contractions for about an hour and a half, and at 7:30 I got my epidural! Heaven! Major props to all the women out there who have their kids without any pain relief! To make this short and sweet, Maggie came into this world at 11:04 pm with the Simpsons on tv! I feel very lucky to have had a quick and easy labor. Eve and Codie made everything really easy and was just amazing. So, she was born and they put her on my chest for about a half a second and Codie cut the cord! She wasn't crying when she was born and when they laid her on me, it seemed like she was struggling to make a sound and within seconds they had her on the little baby bed and there were about 9 nurses and dr's and all kinds of people working on her. Codie and I didn't know what to make of all of this and were just totally silent watching all of these people work on her. A nurse came in and told me mom she had to leave and that's when I really started to get afraid. No one was really telling us what was going on and it was the worst 20 minutes of my life watching them over there with her. I would get small glimpses of her every now and then when one would move, and could see that they had intubated (sp?) her. They were trying to get her to start breathing on her own but weren't having any success. It felt like time was standing still and I knew something was seriously wrong but didn't know what to say or do. After almost a half hour of them working on her the took her away to the NICU at St. Marks. About 45 minutes later the head Dr. of the NICU, Lisa, came in and told Codie that he could come in and see her. He went and I was so mad that I didn't get to go too. He came back and was totally pale and had a horribly worried look on his face, and said that all they told him was that they didn't really know what was going on. After awhile longer I was able to go and see her and it was total shock, they still hadn't given her any kind of sedation medicine and she was being so feisty! She didn't want any of those people messing with her. Still not breathing on her own she was on a ventilator and it was killing me to see her that way. It was a short visit before we were pushed out of there and back to the room. I was moved up one floor to the recovery room and it was much smaller and didn't feel as comfy as the other one. My parents left and it was just me and Codie alone in there without our little girl. It was a horrible feeling and neither of us knew what to say to the other. At about 4 am Lisa came in and informed us that Life Flight was on their way to pick her up and take her up to Primary Children's Medical Center. We were totally shocked and could not believe this was happening. She said that once they were ready to leave they would bring her to my room so we could see her one more time before she left. She was already in the life flight equipment and it was so scary to see her in that little incubator with all the equipment. The life flight nurse was telling me that she may not make it through the flight and that's when I lost it. She gave me her name tag from the NICU and told us they would call when they got there so we knew she was ok. And then they left. Feeling even more empty than before and wishing I could comfort Codie, we tried to get some rest but both of us were totally traumatized. We waited and waited for the call from PCMC and never heard. I was so mad about this, I called up there and they told me she had arrived safely and was getting settled in at the NICU there. Totally livid that no one had called like they said they would, I called my mom and exploded and totally lost it. Everything was so unexpected, all throughout my pregnancy and all of my ultrasounds were totally perfect. No problems at all, everything was great. My mom and dad were able to go and see her at about 9 am and stayed with her about an hour and then came to see me. I was so confused about why this was happening and my parents said that the doctors at PCMC really didn't have any answers yet. I wanted to get out of there so bad and go up and be with her. I felt so stuck and trapped. My parents left and right after that my amazing midwife Eve came to check up on me. I was feeling good and she told me she wanted me to get out of there that day so I could go and be with my daughter. So she got all of my discharge papers ready and I was out of there by about 5. We went straight to PCMC and got there and they were doing some kind of xray or something on her so they said I couldn't see her yet. We waited and waited and I was getting so anxious. Then, of course, at 6:30 to 7:30 was shift change for the nurses so no one can be back there during that time either! I was going crazy knowing she was 10 yards away but I couldn't go back yet. Codie and I finally got to go back at 7:30 and it was so overwhelming going in there. She was hooked up to so many machines and they told me I could only hold her little hand, no stroking or anything like that because she was too sensitive to touch, it would make her blood pressure skyrocket. I didn't understand why she had so many tubes going in her mouth and in her bellybutton and IV's and even a PICC line. I wanted to rip all the cords and tubes off and just hold her. They still didn't have answers on anything and no one explained anything to me. It was almost 2 days before someone gave me a folder full of information about the NICU and made me feel comfortable there. Its taken almost a week, but now I know what each tube and each machine and each number on the screen is for. They were able to tell us on Wednesday that she has pneumonia and a staph infection. The combination of the two of those were causing her heart and lungs to work overtime and neither could handle the stress. Her lungs had mucous on them and parts of her lungs were inflated. Her heart was needing medication to help it pump. Things were getting worse so on Thursday morning they decided to put her on ECMO. More on that tomorrow though... I'm going back in to see her right now. Keep praying!!!

First of all...

A huge thanks to all of mine and Codie's friends and family that have been so supportive and loving through this so far. It mean so much and I really feel like I'll never be able to express how thankful I am to you all. It might take me a minute to learn how to do this, I've never had a blog before, so be patient with me! :) Its been a long day today, but a good one, so for now this is just me feeling this out and learning how it works. But I think it will be good to have this, I never knew so many people would be so concerned and care about Magdalena. But how could you not, right? She is so beautiful and is fighting really hard. I will try to get this started this weekend so everyone can be filled in on her journey so far.