January 28, 2009

Just wanted to give a quick update about Avery's progress the past few days...talked to the nurse this a.m. who told me that Avery was weighed today and she is up to 1 lb. 4 oz! That was great news to hear. She had a brain scan done on Wednesday night which came back negative for bleeding on the brain, which is very common for preemies. This brain scan will be done every Wednesday night going forward. Her belly is still a little bit distended, but it has gone down in the past few days. They are waiting for her to pass some stool and hoping that her belly will go down after that. My family is "praying for poop" at this point. If her belly doesn't go down by Monday they will do a test which will show us if her digestive and gastric systems are working properly. If all goes well she will be able to start officially "feeding" in the next couple of weeks. Right now she is just getting nutrients, it's everything she needs, but to see her feeding would be wonderful. They also did another echo on her heart to check the murmur that she when she was born. The murmur is gone and her heart is functioning perfectly.

I wish I had my camera when I visited her last night because she looked so great. She wasn't under the bilirubin lights (her jaundice levels have gone down) so she didn't have those silly glasses on and she was warm so she wasn't wearing a hat. I got to see her open her eyes for the first time. She kept taking little peeks at me and my mother, who was teasing her and saying "come on Avery make poopy, come on little girl." I think Avery just wanted to see who was bugging her! And her primary nurse, Penny, took such great care of her yesterday. She put some lotion on her skin, which is soooo delicate, because the stickiness of the wires she has attached to her have been leaving marks on her skin. The lotion worked great, her skin looked healthy and pink. And she really is amazing to see. I wish I could take all of you who care for her so much to the NICU with me to meet her. She is perfect, just tiny, but absolutely perfect. She even has some blonde peach fuzz on her head. We are convinced that she is going to look just like her big sister!

I want to personally thank all of my friends and family who donated to the March of Dimes in Avery's name. We have raised almost $2,000 for preemies thanks to all of you. And thank you most of all to Brian Dowd who started the site and really got the word out. Brian, I can never thank you enough for doing that. It means so much. And we have plans in the works to create a March of Dimes team to participate in the walk in Seaside in April. I will definitely have more information coming soon if you are interested in walking with us in Brielle and Avery's honor. We will be "Team BrAvery". Get it????

I also wanted to update everyone on my health....I am doing very well. I saw my doctor yesterday who took out all of my staples (all 30 of them) and checked my incision. I will be going for some blood work in a few weeks to find out why this keeps happening to me when I am pregnant. The dr. seems to think it is a problem with the coagulation of my blood. We'll soon find out. I am feeling better every day and really looking forward to getting back to normal. I can't wait to be able to drive again (I have to wait 2 weeks from the date of the c-section) and to be able to do all the things around the house I need to do. I'm planning on joining the gym and getting my strength back so that I will be ready for Avery when she comes home. Right now my focus is on my daughters and their well being. Unfortunately, there are some people in my life whose priorities are not matching up with mine and I have to let them go. Their loss, not mine.