Big Events

Today two very important things happened- one event for each child; we’ll start with Jack first.

Jack went to see his pediatric ophthalmologist today. Nana and Pop were at an infant CPR class and Dad was at work, so Jack and I made the trip to the doctor all by ourselves and everything else went well. Jack’s eyes had to be dilated, which involved two sets of eye drops about twenty minutes apart. Jack fell asleep on the drive over and slept through both sets of eye drops and only really awoke when I took him out of his car seat and put him on the exam table. The eye exam lasted about 3 minutes and the doctor told us his retinas looked great- no prematurity was detectable- and he sent us on our way. Jack even snagged a Spiderman sticker on his way out because he was such a good little patient. Then he came home and snuggled with his Nana, then Pop, then me, and finally, his dad; he doesn’t mind the doctor as long as he gets lots of love when he gets home.

The other significant event today was the notification we received from Harper’s nurse practitioner. I got into a small back and forth with her earlier in the week when she decided the solution to Harper’s eating problem was to lower the volume she was required to eat and increase the calories of the feed. She was convinced that this might help Harper complete bottles and then move on to a larger volume. I wanted to bypass this step and go straight to a swallow study. The swallow study involves Harper having an x-ray done while drinking a bottle to see if she is aspirating her food. The NP told me that, while a swallow study is an option, we would try the volume change first to see how it worked. When I asked how long we would try the volume change route, she said it would take at least through the weekend to evaluate and then we’d talk about a swallow study next week. This irritated me to no end- remember Harper started with the increased volume on Monday. I felt like we were waiting too long (a week) to see results from a volume increase that may have no impact on her; it was very defeating feeling. Today, however, that feeling has subsided. I got a call today from the NP informing me that Harper will have a swallow study tomorrow- woo hoo! I know that this study may not find anything; she may not be aspirating, and that would be great. If the test shows Harper isn’t aspirating, then we check that off the list and move on to other possibilities; at least we’re moving in a direction. The NP also said that they would look to see if Harper was having any signs of reflux, which is HUGE because baby reflux “does not exist” inside the NICU (meaning they don’t treat it).  Please pray for little Miss Harper tomorrow and pray for her doctors and their staff. I am hoping this will bring us some answers.