Everybody say hello to the Pip Squeak!

The Pip Squeak has arrived. She arrived on Saturday, June 14th at approximately 3:45pm and weighed 3lbs 1oz. The Pip Squeak registered a length of 16 1/3 inches long. She was only 29 weeks and 6 days so that makes her about 10 weeks early.

The SU and I will try to post daily updates here (mainly just for us) so keep coming back to see how she’s doing.

The first couple of days have been a little bit of up and down. Pip Squeak started off great and was just on c-pap and room oxygen but that only lasted a few hours. Our experience has shown us that sometimes the little ones just can’t keep up all by themselves and that they just get tired. The pip squeak eventually needed oxygen and was running at anywhere between 25%-35% oxygen. Eventually, she had to be intubated and placed on the ventilator. The doctor decided that they wanted to give her some surfactant to help her lungs. When they did chest x-rays they found that her lungs were typical of a 29 week baby and still premature. She also still had some fluid in her lungs. Since then, she’s been doing well. Pip Squeak has been breathing over the ventilator settings and on anywhere from 25%-35% oxygen. The staff tells us that this is a good sign because the sicker babies in the NICU will ride the ventilator and let it do the work.

She has an IV in her head currently and at last update she was receiving TPN, some fats, and some antibiotics. They began feeding her this afternoon and so far she has tolerated her food and has had no residuals. (We’re hoping she’s a piggy and eats a lot.) This evening, she was feeling particularly feisty and decided to try to remove her breathing tube. I walked into her room and saw two respiratory therapists, two nurses, and the doctor all huddled around and I got quite excited. Once they explained what was going on I was like, Hell yeah! That’s my girl! It’s not necessarily a good thing for her to rip it out but hey, at least she’s feeling well enough to do SOMETHING. The pip squeak is looking a bit yellow today so I think we’ll probably be seeing her under the bili lights in the next 24-48 hours. She hasn’t had a BM (bowel movement, or poop in layman’s terms) yet. We’re a little concerned about this, but we also realize they just started feeding her this afternoon.

We’d like to see her off of the ventilator (mostly just to make us feel better), but we agree with the doctors that we should let her decide when that happens and that could be within the next couple of days to about a week from now. It all just depends on how she does. Overall, we’re mostly pleased with her progress so far.

This experience so far has been completely different but still challenging and a bit nerve racking. Especially for me because the only experience I have to compare it with is our experience with the Miracle. I don’t quite know what to expect still or what’s “typical” because the last time NOTHING was typical. I have to keep reminding myself that we were at one extreme end of the spectrum last time and at another area of the spectrum this time. Six to eight weeks in the NICU is a very long time so I’ll have to learn to be patient.

We’d like to thank everyone for the kind words, thoughts, emails, phone calls, and prayers offered on our behalf. It means a lot to us.