Little miss Mae has been through a lot for a girl who is not even four days old yet.
They are continuously monitoring her pulse, blood ox level, and resperation rate. On Saturday, she was on the CPAP machine and her numbers on the monitors seemed really good. Good enough to come off the CPAP and onto something called a Vapotherm, which is similar to a CPAP, but doesn't provide as much pressure for her lungs, which made her work harder to breathe on her own. She seemed to do really well with it and her numbers were good on the monitors, but then they checked her blood gas levels and her CO2 levels were very high. Essentially her blood was being oxygenated, but not releasing the CO2 back out. So she ended up back on the CPAP for a while.
Sunday was a long day for her. She continued to need a higher percentage oxygen level in the CPAP, so they ended up giving her a dose of surfactant in her lungs, which meant she had to be intabated while they did it. She also pulled out two different IV's, so they ended up putting a central line in through her belly button. All of that happened within about an hour and really put a lot of stress on her little body. As a result, she ended up increasing her need for oxygen quite a bit. That afternoon she was up to around 60-70% oxygen. The rest of the day Sunday and throughout Monday they slowly turned her oxygen level down as she could stand it and increased her food intake.
Beth and I went back home for the night Monday night to do some laundry and see our other kiddos. It was really hard to leave Mae in the hospital and it was equally hard to leave the kids at home today. As Beth said the other day, it feels like our hearts are in two places.
Last night when we left the hospital Mae was doing okay, today when we got back she was doing great. Her oxygen level right now is at room air, 21% oxygen. The CPAP is also turned down to the lowest flow rate possible, so the next step is to go back to the Vapotherm or something similar that will still give her oxygen, but at a much lower level, making her do the work.
She is now taking 36 mL of food every three hours and is doing very well with it. They will likely keep her on the CPAP the rest of the day and check her blood gas levels again tonight. If all goes well, she will come off the CPAP tonight or tomorrow and go to another type of machine. At that point we will get to start holding her more, which we are really excited about. Beth has gotten to hold her twice, but not for very long.
Miss Mae has been through a lot, but is doing very well right now. The doctors are hesitant to give a date that they think she might go home because it all depends on how she does.
Thank you for all the prayers and please keep them coming!
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