THE MAGIC LEFT HAND

Sadie discovers she has a left hand...

HARRY TALKS TO HIS LITTLE SIS

Turn up your speakers...

Nashua NICU Video

Hey All-

Sorry for the delay on the post, but here it is.
Sadie is doing well. She is in Nashua until she learns to eat on her own w/o a tube. We were told 2 or 3 weeks- we will have to wait and see.

Anyway, here is a video-

WHERE HAVE I BEEN?

Hey everyone-

Been very busy. Sadie is doing great! She is now in a normal baby crib in the Hospital- I have a new video that I am going to post tomorrow as well as all the good stuff going on with her.

hittin' the sack now.

WOW-


At 9:30 am tomorrow -Thursday(10-26) ,Sadie and Miriam are getting on an ambulance and transferring to Southern NH Medical Center in Nashua!!!
For those of you outside of NH, Nashua is only about 25 miles away from my house (and DHMC is about 2 hours away).

SO-
This is all great news.
Sadie is up to her max feeds (40cc) and she is also breast feeding really well (her mom is a PRO!!!)
They have completely taken her IV out, and she is now wearing clothes!

I am working tomorrow 1-10, so I will update asap.


Thanks to all!


The dangerous 5 (almost all together!)

ANOTHER STEP

HEY!

Miriam called around 4- They took out her chest tube and disconnected her IV. She said she is doing really well!

Off to bed-

CHEST TUBE? WHAT CHEST TUBE?

Hey all-

I am back home with Jack and Harry. Miriam called me this morning and said the doctors are going to remove her chest tube this afternoon! WOO HOO! Also, the are going to be taking her off some of her IV stuff. (lipids & electrolytes). She is up t0 30cc on her feeds.

I am going to be home and at work over the next few days and back up to the hospital Saturday after work to Sunday night.

The Dangerous 5

LOOK OVER YANDER!

Looking out of the window of the NICU floor

PICTURES FOR YOU

Hey Mom!

SHHH!!!

Sleeping

Pretty girls

Don't forget to brush!

Marriage is great

no mas! no mas!

They decided to slow down on the feeds (milk). She has been throwing up a little so she will be going back down to 17cc every 3 hours.

BATHTIME AT THE APOLLO

A Message from Jack and Harry...

E.T. PHONE HOME!!!

Hey everyone-

I have not been calling anyone for the past couple of days- I have been really busy.

The Docs are not ready to clamp the chest tube at this point. That is going to be the next step in her progress.

Miriam, Jack ,Harry and I are all doing ok- a little "up in the air without a home" feeling, but all well.

Thanks again for all the support.

Cheers,


The Dangerous5

SUGAR AND SPICE AND CHEST FLUID MUCK

BABY OF THE YEAR VIDEO!

Captian Happy

Harry says hi too!

GOT MILK?

Hey!

Sadie ate today for the first time! They are feeding her breast milk every three hours through a small tube in her nose. (Jack thinks this is really weird) They are still checking the output on her chest tube, and it is looking really good-not much coming out at all.

Miriam is really getting to spend some good time with her daughter and LOVING IT!

At work tomorrow till 5 then picking up the kids from Grampie and Michelle and heading back to the hospital.

On a side note...

I changed the settings so that anyone can post comments- even without logging in!

SUPERSTAR SADIE!!!

Amazing

I made it up to the Hospital tonight around 5pm. I can not wait to take some pics of her for everyone to see. She looks AMAZING! I got to hold her for about 30 min, and the entire time she starred at me and made faces. I think she likes me.

Post more asap.

Cheers

Monday Monday

Hey everyone!

I came home last night with the boys- They slept well in their own beds.
Jack got off to school this morning, and Harry and I are hanggin around the house watching cartoons! WOO HOO!

Last night Miriam told me that she got to help the nurse give Sadie a bath and change her blankets and stuff. She said it felt so great to be a mom to her!

I talked to Miriam this morning and we have more good news!

• They took her off the CPAP machine. (the big blue tube on her nose) They say her respiratory system is doing really well
• They had a small tube down her mouth into her belly to take out extra air that the machine was putting in- that has also come out!
• Her chest tube output really slowed down!!! If she keeps going like she did last night, they are going to clamp off the chest tube. They don't want to take it out yet, just in case- But clamp it off will give them a good idea what will happen when they do decide to take it completly out.
• She is peeing really well
• Looking really healthy
• Overall, her fluid input and output is good!
• And finally, the nurses took off her cap, fluffed up her hair and put a pink bow on her head!!!

TWO MORE PICS!!

This is me and Mark at David's House. It has been a great help to us and an awesome place to stayThe Dangerous 5 (minus 1)

SADIE ON VIDEO!!!

Look at me, I'm pretty!!!

The top 4 are pics of her yesterday, her birthday. she still had the tube down her throat.

Below are pics taken today (the 15th). The tube is out of her throat, and she is breathing good!

nite nite

sorry folks...no pics tonight.

hope to have some up tomorrow...

Great news!!!-
They took Sadie off of the ventilator and she is doing well!!!! AWESOME!!!

Jack and Harry are here so not much time to play on computer...

will update soon!!!

Love,


The Dangerous 5

On the road again...

Hey All!

I have been on the road this morning trucking back home to pick up Jack & Harry. I got back around 2:30pm.

Miriam is doing really well- Just a little sore.

Sadie is also improving really well. They have weaned her off oxygen completely and turned down how much the respirator is working. - so she is breathing some on her own and some with the help of the respirator. Her heart is doing really well too!

The fluid on her right side has totally gone away with the help of a chest tube they had to put in. They turned off the suction of the tube to keep her body from thinking that it is supposed to keep pumping fluid into her chest- and so far so good! The fluid is still gone!
Also, when she was born she had a good sized amount of fluid on her left side too- They decided not to "tap" (put in a tube and drain) that side. The fluid on that side has gone down on its own!!!

She is peeing ok- and that is a great thing.

We were waiting on a preliminary test of the amnio fluid to determine a chromosomal defect like Down syndrome, Turners syndrome, etc... But the test came back inconclusive. We should receive the results of the bigger, more accurate test in a week or two.

There are no markers on Sadie that looks like there are any type of chromosomal defects- She looks beautiful.

While I was home today, I grabbed the camera cord . I am going to be posting some pics of Sadie this afternoon/tonight.

Thanks again for everything- We could not have made it through this without all the help and support- When any of you see or talk to Aaron and Jess, give then a huge hug and thank you from us. They have been sleeping at our house and taking great care of our Boys.

Thanks again to everyone!


Love,


The Dangerous5

PICS (NO SADIE YET)

Here is The Hospital we are at. For info, click HERE

I'm not a real doctor, but I play one on TV!

Havin fun!

Sadie Pics up soon!!!

SADIE!

Wow...
What a crazy 48 hours! We made it home on Thursday around 6:30. Miriam started having contractions spaced around 7-10 min. apart. They were not terribly painful, but not fun either. Around 9:30 they went to about 5 min. apart, so we called Darthmouth- they told us to drive in. (about a two hour drive). While waiting for Jess, our hero, Miriams water broke. I called back to Darthmouth and they told me to drive directly to Southern NH Medical Center ( about 30 min away) to monitor Miriam and baby to see if she is able to make the trip to Darthmouth. We got there around 11:30. After checking, the doctor decided it was too risky to send us to Darthmouth. Around 4:30am they decided that labor was coming, so it was time to deliver by C-section. Sadie was born around 6:30am weighing in at 5lbs 6.8 oz and 17 & 3/4" long.
She was not breathing, so they quickly bagged her and got her on a machine to breath for her. They were able to get her stable around 11:00am so they air-lifted her to Darthmouth. Miriam and I followed in an ambulance 4 hours later.

We are now all together here! Sadie is doing better- They are not having to supplement her oxygen anymore. She is pink, pretty, and has a lot of black frizzy hair. (Miriam says her eyes are blue).

We are extremely happy and very blessed by all the activities in the last couple of days. I want to thank everyone so much for your prayers, calls, and support.
At this point, they really don't know how long she is going to be living here at the hospital. We have heard at least 3-4 weeks.

I was hopping to post some pics of Sadie, but I forgot the camera cord! CRAP! I will get some pics up asap.

Sorry for such a long post, I have been awake since Thursday @ 6am. Gonna crash now- update more ASAP!!!


Love,

The Dangerous 5

GOODNIGHT

Hey All-

It is 9:00pm and we are home. We have no new updates at this time, but should have the chromosome test back tomorrow.
Also, we are having a fetal distress test done tomorrow in Merrimack.

Please email me at pmccallum2004@yahoo.com with any questions.

We are going to now try to get some rest.

Thanks again to everyone!

P

BACK FROM ULTRASOUND

2:30pm

Hey we are back in the room now and still waiting for the doc to come in and update us.

THURSDAY 1:05PM

HEY-
REALLY QUICK NOTE HERE---

THEY JUST CAME IN AND TOLD US THEY WANT TO DO ANOTHER SONOGRAM. WE WILL UPDATE ASAP.


THANKS EVERYONE!!!

As of 11:10 am on Thursday-

Shoukld be hearing from docs soon. will update asap.

THANKS EVERYONE!!!

Good morning all!
I am now home with Jack & Harry while Miriam is sleeping back at the hospital. We have no new news at this point, so I thought I would post some pics of our trip.

Update-(sort-of)
2:15

Doc came in- told us that it looks like the amount of fluid in the baby is about the same as yesterday. good news!

Hey Everyone-

I am going to be updating this blog anytime we get an update on anything.
For those of you I have not talked to, here is what has gone on:
Monday morning we had a sonogram that showed a good sized plural effusion (fluid on the lungs) and also too much amneoic fluid (outside the baby). They decided to admit us to the Birthing Pavilion (labor and delivery) for observation and to give Miriam steroids just In case they need to deliver the baby. They took a ton of blood and ran a bunch of tests.
On Monday night Miriam started having contractions. They were about 4 min. apart and were not really big, but somewhat painful. The staff thinks that this was due to so much amniotic fluid- the uterus gets irritated and thinks that the baby is further along than she really is.

The contractions slowed down and just about went away at the end of the night, and she was able to get some sleep (thank you sleeping pills!)

Tuesday (day 2) the docs came in and decided the best thing to do is called a reducing amniocentesis. They go in to the womb with a 22 gauge needle and take out some of the fluid. They also decided to go into the chest of the baby and drain out the fluid around the lung.

They did the procedure at 2 pm and it went GREAT! The procedure only took about 45 min. ( I only lasted in the O.R. for about 10 min.!!!) They took out a liter and a third of amniotic fluid! The rest of the afternoon was just them monitoring Miriam and the baby. Everything looked great.
The Doc came in around 7 and told us that the amniotic fluid has the staff "stumped" It is darker than usual, and has little floaties in it. They are running more and more test to rule out anything they can think of. They decided to take more blood from Miriam for more tests. They also wanted some of my blood too! woo hoo!
The rest of the night was pretty boring. Periodic checks from nurses, etc.

This morning they wanted to do another sonogram. They found that the amniotic fluid still looks good, but the fluid around the baby's lung has come back a little. It is not as bad as it was, but it does look a little bigger than it did right after the procedure.

We are now just in our room waiting for the docs to come in and update us to what the next move is. As soon as we hear anything, I will update this blog.

Cheers everyone.