DAY 10 & 11

The last couple of days have been tough on our little miss Alice. She's having problems breathing so an x-ray was done and she has what is called 'wet lungs' - meaning that she needs help to breath. She is still intubated and they are having to figure out her CO2 levels as they are quite high - in the high 60's or low 70's and they should be between 40 and 60. So the RT (Respiratory Therapist) plays with the levels of stuff (I don't know what) to try and get her CO2 levels lower.

There were a couple times yesterday morning where she just stopped breathing so they had to 'bag her' (just like you see on the hospital shows where they put the bag over the mouth and manually pump air to fill the lungs). All of this stuff is fairly normal for premies, so don't worry.

Her weight continues to go up and down. She was down to 794 grams yesterday but gained 6 grams overnight. So is now at 800 grams.

Today she seemed much more sleepy than she has on previous days - even more so than yesterday. So it's time to figure out what is wrong. Some tests are being done tonight to see if she has an infection of some kind (doctor phoned to say she did very well when they took all what they needed from her for the tests). They are also going to give her a blood transfusion as she is showing signs of anemia in her blood count. A blood transfusion usually happens in the first week and the fact Alice has made it to Day 11 without one is great. This is also very common for premies. Some premies will only have one transfusion and some will require more. If you're wondering the stats on a blood transfusion - I believe 1 in a million chance of HIV and 1 in 250,000 of Hep C. They have to tell us these statistics but from what the doctor's have said, they've never seen either of these actually occur.

All of these things that are happening are normal for premies and when the doctor's are worried, then we will worry - and they are not worrying. So we are good. There are steps forward and then steps backwards. This is a tough backwards because it's the first backwards step we've taken. But there will be more!