10/20/08 - Then and Now

Today was media day for Kayleigh so I wanted to reflect a little on the growth this little girl has accomplished. Even though Kayleigh is almost at the four pound mark, she has nearly tripled in size since she was born.

Then

& Now

Then

& Now

Then

& Now

Then & Now


So when you say she is so tiny, your right. But, we'll never forget how tiny she used to be.

Wednesday at 8:00 in the morning, Kayleigh will be having her cardiac catheter procedure done. The doctors are going to measure her pulmonary pressures. There are two outcomes to this procedure and we are certainly hoping to the better of the two. The first outcome is the pulmonary pressures are high, but not constant. That means with time, they will lower to a normal state when the VSD (Hole in the heart) is repaired and she will live a normal life. The second is that the pulmonary pressures stay fixed, which the RN did not go in to great detail as it is not a good scenario. What we basically learned is that if Kayleigh has fixed pulmonary hypertension, her heart would be at a constant high pressure and we all know high blood pressure is not a good thing for the body. I don't know anymore details then that, but it seemed as if the nurse just wanted us to try and stay positive and hope for the best.

So I ask all of you for more prayers that this test results in a case where Kayleigh will not have pulmonary hypertension or high pulmonary pressures for ever. She has overcome many obstacles, but we need to overcome this one too so please find time to pray for Kayleigh again. I really don't know a whole lot else and our doctors advised us to not do a whole lot of research as each case is significantly different amongst preemies. It is also not the same as pulmonary hypertension amongst adults due to the different size of human we are dealing with. The good news is out of all of this, is if she recovers well from the cath procedure and can hold her temperature when they take her out of the isolette, she will be ready to come home. That could be as early as Monday of next week. WOO HOO!

So...Beyond this final hurdle of the unknown, Kayleigh is doing great. She grew 15 more grams last night which puts her at 1670 grams = (3 pounds - 10.9 ounces). The doctors have increased her bottle feedings up to "as much as she wants". They tried to take her off her oxygen completely to see how she would do, but she started to desat. The doctor said he would try to wean her down from 100% to see how she responds to that. She has been finishing all her bottles except the one we fed her today. Aimee breast fed her for about 10-15 minutes really good before Kayleigh started to get tired so we switched to the bottle. I guess it is much harder work to feed off the breast as the milk does not flow as easily as the bottle. The video below show Kayleigh right after finishing breast feeding and finishing half of her bottle, when she was trying so hard to stay awake, but just didn't have the strength. It is so cute when she perks up enough to do a half smile and then doze right back off.

Thank you all for your words of encouragement and support through this whole journey. Kayleigh is almost in the clear and ready to cause bigger trouble outside the hospital walls.

God Bless,

The Freemans :)