Week In Review

Lots of appointments!! It seems that every week we have lots of appointments. On Friday the 13th I went to Methodist for an abdominal ultrasound, chest x-ray, and echocardiogram. All results came back good--I have 2 kidneys and the chest x-ray and echo came back good. While I was waiting for my echo I fell asleep in the waiting room (accidentally). The tech thought it was funny so I explained that I have a newborn at home. When she asked me 10 minutes later how old my baby is, I wondered how she knew I had a baby. Wow--I do not get smarter with sleep deprivation. The next day was Valentine's Day. My mom babysat and forced Duke and I to go to dinner and a movie. The whole time we talked about how cute our baby girl is and how much we missed her. :) I took a short nap during the movie (again accidentally). It was nice to get out though and feel like real people. Thanks Mom!! On Monday the 16th we took Cate to see the surgeon at Children's because of the pediatrician noticing she has a groin hernia. At first the surgeon said he didn't see one and almost sent us on our way. Then he got Cate fired up and he saw it. He immediately said he would be doing surgery in 2 weeks. He said what is sticking out when you see the hernia is her ovary. :( He said that it shouldn't have an effect on her ovary if they do the surgery soon. It is scheduled for Friday, March 6th. She will have to be put back on the ventilator and will be given iv fluids. She will be in the hospital for at least 24 hours, maybe longer depending on her vitals and how well she does on the vent. She will stay in either the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) or the NICU. I am hoping she will be in the NICU since that is what we are familiar with. But hopefully it is just for one night. When we were up at Children's we stopped by the NICU to see Cate's friends (the nurses). We had to tell her about it later as she slept through it. It was great to see you guys! Maybe we'll see more of you on the 6th. On Tuesday the 17th the school system came out to look at Cate. This is a service that the pediatrician told me I should use. The school system offers free services to disabled children (Cate is considered disabled because of her being so premature). The occupational and physical therapists came out and looked at her. They will give us a report on their recommendations next month. On Wednesday the 18th the home health nurse came over to see how much milk Cate was getting from nursing. We were concerned that Cate may not have been nursing well because her weight gain has been so slow. She weighed 2 oz more at the end of the feed than at the beginning (4 lb 11 oz--4 lb 13 oz). That was great news. We were so worried that she was not getting anything while nursing. Now we know that I am not starving her. The home health nurse will continue to come out a couple times each week. She will be back tomorrow. Yesterday I had to go in for another dye test. It came back the same as last time. It looks like I have a unicornuate uterus and only one fallopian tube. My o.b. said they know I have 2 fallopian tubes because they saw them when she delivered Cate. She said that the one tube would only give me a tubal pregnancy, so now we have to decide whether to surgically remove that tube. She is consulting with a fertility specialist to see what we should do. Tomorrow I go in for more labs with my genetic heart condition and then the home health nurse will be coming over tomorrow afternoon. More later... Sorry for the novel!