Saturday, April 30, 2005

Baby has a new bed. This one should help her maintain a more consistent temperature and also muffle annoying ICU noises.
UNM also has the center of the universe.
UNM has a duck pond. The ducks are a little skittish though.
There was a lot of good news this week, but unfortunately we've also received some not so good news. The results of Camilla's head ultrasound came back, and it appears that she had a grade-3 intraventricular hemorrhage. This is not as bad as a grade-4 IVH (which is really bad), but it is frequently associated with a variety of developmental problems. Apparently it is a "mild" grade-3 though, so hopefully things will still work out ok (and in many cases they do), but it will be years before we really know. I hope to learn more in the next few days.

By the way, I'd like to thank everyone who has called and emailed, and also apologise for being so slow to respond. Dealing with all of this requires a surprising amount of time and energy.
Baby's first feeding tube. Camilla was fed three times today, which is good news. Unfortunately her oxygen saturation became somewhat erratic later in the day, so they are going to back off on feeding while that stabilizes.
Mother and daughter, reunited at last.
Uncle Bob

Friday, April 29, 2005

Baby in blue.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Camilla is up to 750 grams (her diaper is 8 grams), close to her birth weight of 759 grams (1 pound, 10.8 ounces). Apparently babies always lose a lot of weight in the first few days after birth.
Grandpa
Albuquerque seems like a pretty nice place, which is good because we are planning to stay here until Camilla is ready to leave. She'll probably need to be in a hospital until sometime in July, and fortunately the people at UNM seem really good.

I'll try to get some Albuquerque pictures soon.
April says that Camilla looks all snuggled up and comfortable.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

For our trip, April brought a children's book on cd titled "In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson", which we listened to while driving to Nevada. In the story, the main character recounts a story from her grandfather:
Once upon a time an old man in China had one horse and one son. One day the horse strayed and got lost. When the old man's neighbors heard this, they went to tell the old man they were sorry about his bad luck. "How do you know it is bad luck?" he asked.

Soon thereafter the horse returned, and he brought back with him many wild horses. Now the neighbors came to congratulate the man on his good luck. "How do you know it is good luck?" he asked.

With so many horses, the son took up riding. One day, he was thrown and broke his leg. Once more, the neighbors came to the old man. Once more, they expressed sorrow at his bad luck. Once more, he asked, "How do you know it is bad luck?"

Very soon thereafter a war broke out and the military came to the old man's village to draft all the young men into the army to fight. Because of his broken leg, the old man's son did not have to go to war.
She likes to have April's hand on her back.
That's dark, black hair on her back. I guess she takes after her uncle Steve :)
She likes to hold April's finger.
Grandpa.
Grandma.
April was transported to Albuquerque in one of these helicopters (we were in Taos when the excitement began). I had to drive :(
She tries to suck her thumb, but her hand is never in the exact right place.
She spends a lot of time under the "Bili-Light". This helps the body breakdown bilirubin, which is produced by the breakdown of red blood cells. Apparently it is common for premature babies to need this.
Aww...
April says that this is her favorite picture.
Baptized with "Enfamil".
Baby got baptized.
April reports that the morphine is effective.
Back together again (4/21/2005 @ 7:18 am).

Before & After

4/20/2005 @ 5:25 pm (before)



4/21/2005 @ 5:44 am (after)