Abigail Marie Tanner
Born Oct. 1st at 7:40pm
2 pounds 5 oz and 14.75 inches long
28 weeks gestation
Abigail was born so early because I came down with pre-eclampsia and HELLP. They life flighted me to Boise for the delivery because their NICU was better equipped to take care of her.
She was in great condition (APGAR scores of 8 and 8) when she was born. She was intubated for the first two days on 22% oxygen but after that she was placed on a CPAP. The little cutie had fingers the width of toothpicks and a head the size of a baseball. Her daiper was smaller than an index card and her binky looked like it belonged to a doll, not a baby. But, I geuss she was about the size of a doll.
I visted her as often as I could while I was recovering in the hospital. Sometimes it was very frustrating because my blood preasure would get so high that the nurses refused to let me get out of bed to see her. I kept trying to persuade them that if they would just let me see my little girl that my blood preasure would go down. They agreed only if I was wheeled over in a wheel chair. Even after I left the hospital my
doctor still ordered me to not move around too much. So I'd catch the shuttle from the Ronald McDonald House to the hospital and then have transport wheel me up to the NICU. Gosh I felt silly. But at least I didn't have a stroke.The first day I held Abigail I was just grinning from ear to ear. She was just so prescious and so tiny. I loved watching her little face make such tiny perfect expressions. I think she enjoyed being close to me after being torn apart for a few days. That's also when my milk decided to come in. By the time I put her back in bed I was drenched!
Abigail progressed pretty well for the first two weeks. Then we hit a pretty big bump in the road. She had to have her UV (umbilical vien) line taken out because it had migrated into her liver. They placed a PICC line in her left leg to give her IV fluids, TPN, and lipids. Then she stopped tollerating her feeds and became extreemly "spelly" meaning she had frequent periods of apnea and bradycardia. A blood test revealed that she had a systemic bacterial infection. Most likely it was from her PICC line. So they pulled her PICC line and gave her fluids through IV sites. They also had to give her several blood transfussions and intubate her for breathing support. The tube in her trachea was very irritating and made her creat lots of mucus secreations. After the antibiotics kicked in she started to feel better. So well in fact that she decided to pull her tube out. We tried her out of CPAP for the night but she was still so weak from her infection that she had to be reintubated the next morning. The trauma of being re-intubated caused a lot of blood to pool up in her lungs and her belly. Poor little girl.
A few days latter she started to feel much better. She had a new PICC line placed and they started weening her off the vent. Then she pulled her tube out AGAIN! This time we put her on a high flow nasal cansula and she's been doing well ever since. She is now a wappen 3 lbs 2 oz!
