Katie Lynn’s first week in this world has been a rather trying one.
After she was born, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit team examined her to ensure she was able to “function” on her own. As it was explained to us, an NICU team examines all pre-term babies. They determined that Katie Lynn should be on oxygen for a little while as she builds up her strength. The University Medical Center Family Care Center has an unwritten rule that any newborn placed on oxygen for six hours be transferred to NICU.
Once in NICU, Katie Lynn actually was breathing great. In fact, throughout her stay at UMC’s NICU, she was never on oxygen. Monday night though is when Katie Lynn’s hellacious week began. While Monica and I were down in NICU, she began vomiting a green substance. As a precaution, NICU staff decided to put a tube down her nose in an effort to vacuum out this green substance from her stomach.
On Tuesday, Katie Lynn still hadn’t produced a bowel movement, so the NICU staff decided to give her a rectal barium enema to flush out her lower gastrointestinal tract. The enema proved to be successful in that it led to the discovery of multiple meconium plugs that were flushed out due to the process. The doctor remained hopeful that this would trigger bowel movements.
Unfortunately, Wednesday came and still no stool. It was decided to do another rectal barium enema to see if there were any more meconium plugs that the first enema missed. Monica was released from the hospital on Wednesday and the sadness set in that our precious daughter was not coming home with us.
Thursday arrived and brought yet another challenge. Katie Lynn still had not given us a bowel movement, and in addition, now was developing jaundice. As bilirubin is excreted through stool, it made sense unfortunately that this could happen. She was placed in a phototherapy isolette to help curb her jaundice.
Friday comes and brings with it a slew of mixed emotions and news. Katie Lynn’s bilirubin level went down, so that meant the phototherapy was working. However, she still hadn’t given us the pleasure of that first real poopy diaper. The doctors decided to perform an upper GI this time to see if there was a blockage higher up in her GI system. The doctors were fairly sure the two barium enemas had cleared her lower GI. Additionally, the doctors ordered biopsies be performed on her large intestine in order to determine whether or not the nerves were fully formed.
The doctor pushed pathology to get the test results from the upper GI. Luckily, pathology was able to complete the tests quickly. The doctor’s suspicions were confirmed: there was a blockage higher up somewhere in or around Katie Lynn’s small intestine. UMC is currently “in between” pediatric surgeons, so the doctor had Katie Lynn transferred to the other hospital in town, Covenant Medical Center, that afternoon.
So at four days old, Katie Lynn already experienced her first (and hopefully last) ambulance ride.
Once at Covenant, we met with the pediatric surgeon who decided it was best to wait for the upper GI test results. Those would be in Saturday by noon.
Saturday brought what we had been craving for five days – progress and answers. Test results from the biopsies showed nerves formed correctly. The pediatric surgeon scheduled “exploratory” surgery for noon Saturday to locate the problem and hopefully correct it.
Katie Lynn was put on the ventilator around noon and finally rolled into surgery around 1:45 PM. After an hour and a half, the surgeon comes to talk to us in the NICU waiting room. The surgery was a success! He found an 1″-1.5″ section of her small intestine (called an atresia) that was preventing the flow of excrement through her digestive system. The surgeon removed the section and connected the two ends to create the pathway. We were able to see Katie Lynn about 30 minutes after surgery.
Finally we see progress and light at the end of the tunnel.
These types of situations though are slow. Doctors expect her to have a bowel movement in the next couple of days. Once that happens and things check out okay, nurses will begin to feed Katie Lynn. They will start out with a very small amount and increase it as her bowel movements correlate to the amount fed.
Unfortunately, this is indeed a slow process. We are facing at a minimum three to four weeks before Katie Lynn will be able to come home. While that is an incredibly difficult fact to accept, we know the important thing is that Katie Lynn is okay and will be coming home.
We have truly been blessed by the good Lord, and we are thankful He worked His miracles by allowing the doctors and nurses to care for our baby girl.
I close this post with a couple of Bible verses:
But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
Jeremiah 17:7
And the next verse is my confirmation verse:
Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.
Psalms 37:5
