35 Weeks and a battery of tests and awesome sauce news.

Hi there,

Its been a while since I moved out of the isolette; it seems like so long ago that I was impressing doctors and being called the unit's most boring baby.  Since I was exceeding so many expectations, I think people just assumed I'd be walking out of here at 34 weeks.  Like literally walking out of here. However, as my mom has shared with you, I've been having some episodes with desaturating in oxygen.  Mom has been concerned about it because it is new.  She never has had to watch the monitor before, and finds herself doing it all the time now because an alarm goes off if my oxygen is too low.  Sometimes it seems to happen after my tummy is full, but sometimes it happens out of nowhere.  Mom has had a lot of sleepless nights and gets frustrated.  It seems like there has been a new nurse every day, and mom has to get them to stay in my room and witness the oxygen drift before they see it.  Even when my pal Jordan reported it, the residents didn't seem to think it was too concerning, but my mom does. I think it is hard for her because she is like a hawk around me, so she notices if I do something out of the ordinary for me, but for the residents, I'm a normal premie baby.  

But today she got back up.  As the residents were rounding and saying how stable and boring I was, Lindsey had a report and pointed out that I had desaturated 20 times in 24 hours.  Dr. Rao, a super awesome neonatalogist, then ordered a full work up on me. While mom wasn't very happy about me getting poked to draw blood and having to have a catheter (what did she think, they'd give me a tiny thimble for a urine sample), she was really happy that someone was trying to make sure nothing was wrong. Dr. Rao even ordered a heart echo just to be safe.  

This is me getting a heart echo.

Once again, I got my pup soothing me during the echo.  Mom says the probes are cute on the echo because they're so small.  Apparently if something is miniature, it is automatically cute to adults. Lucky me!

The good news is that all of those tests came back okay!  Mom felt a little sheepish but at the same time she was so relieved that someone actually took a look to see if there was anything obviously wrong.  And I have some AMAZING news.  I am no longer diagnosed with a coarctation of the aorta.  This was mostly ruled out a few weeks after birth but they were going to do one final echo before I was discharged to make sure.  This was the echo that proved it!  I don't need a heart surgery anymore!  I can go straight home after my time at the NICU and not to Phoenix Children's Hospital.  Originally I was going to have to go right away, and then it looked a little better so they thought they could wait a few months.  NOW it looks like the prenatal diagnosis was over conservative.  Mom and Dad celebrate with funny dances sometimes and when they found out my heart was okay they did one that would embarrass my future self.  I hope they forget that or become really boring by the time I'm in high school.

I was sooo incredibly pooped after my long morning of test that I completely conked out through my noon, three o'clock, and almost my 6 o'clock care.  I guess I needed the rest, because I didn't desaturate the rest of the day.

I slept like this without a peep for hours.

But then mom finally had to wake me up for 6pm cares.