Day 1 - 4

We have been extremely busy with Jemma and Hana in the hospital the first few days. But now, with Hana being released, it has settled down to a more manageable degree. We will update this blog more often for a few weeks to make sure everyone can stay in the loop.

The current issues that Jemma is fighting with is as follows:

-Unstable blood sugar. 

   Her blood sugar was very low at the start, so the doctors gave her some extra glucose...then it went super high so they had to put her on insulin. She has since been taken off the insulin, but her blood sugar is still fluctuating out side of the normal bounds. The NICU will monitor and adjust her sugar input as required.

-Elevated acidosis.

   Her acid is quite high and they took a sonogram of her kidneys, they shown bright on the test but the doctor assured us that all preemies kidneys show up bright on this test so not to worry.  We just need to give her kidneys a few days to start working.

-Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD)

   She has a very small hole in the wall between her left and right ventricle. This sounds very alarming, but the fact that they found it while doing the test for low blood sugar means that it isn't even large enough to cause a heart murmur. They also noted that there was a bit of tissue near the hole that very well likely grow over it soon closing the hole all together.

-Breathing

   She is technically breathing on her own, however they still have a CPAP machine attached to her in order to help pressurize and finish forming the bottom of her lungs. Thankfully, we had the steroid shot a week prior that is designed to combat this exact situation and give the baby more power to develop her lungs with.

She is still extremely small, weighing just over 2lbs, she is most susceptible right not to infections and large changes in her developing systems. However, she's a fighter!  When the doctor comes in for a new shift at 9 in the morning they visit the most needed babies first.  Jemma is seen around 12 noon, making me feel like she is doing very well!