Right now we are still having to supplement her with a bottle after we breastfeed. Since she was a preemie it's hard for her to do the whole breastfeeding thing well right now. But she seems to be doing well with it.
On Monday, July 25th, when Portia was only 11 days old, we had the scariest moment of our lives! I gave her a bath in the early evening and laid her down for a nap. Bill came home and woke her up for her next feeding, but Bill didn't think she looked right. She felt cold and was pretty lethargic, I just assumed that is was from the bath. But then she wouldn't wake up to feed and at that moment I realized something was wrong. Bill took her temperature several times and it was low every time, it was around 95 degrees, we immediately contacted the doctor's office and spoke to the triage nurse. She wanted us to take it one more time rectally and if it was still low she wanted us to go to the pediatric ER at St. Francis. It was still low so we packed what we could and rushed to the ER, the pediatric ER closed at 1am and we arrived at 12:45pm. Portia was looked at right away, Dr. Ethan Warlick was extremely concerned because she was hypothermic, apenic, and seemed septic, he started to run tests immediately. She had 4 nurses that poked her to draw blood for numerous tests, she even had xrays and a lumbar puncture! It was so hard to watch because there was nothing Bill and I could do and all Portia did was cry and arch her back.
Dr. Warlick decided to admit Portia to the pediatric ICU at the Children's Hospital at St. Francis. We arrived over there around 2:15am, she was put under warming lights as we were leaving the ER to help raise her body temperature and once we arrived in the PICU the nurses started an IV and antibiotics right away and they continued to obtain cultures and blood to run more tests til about 5am! They started the antibiotics immediately because her doctor, Dr. Malik, thought she had some kind of bacteria or viral infection and wanted to start treatment right away even before the cultures came back , to fight the infection immediately. Dr. Malik prepared us for the worse type of infection, which was spinal meningitis, we were so scared, and all that we could do was pray for her healing!
The next 24 hours were the longest 24 hours we had ever experienced. We just had to wait and see if anything grew on Portia's cultures. But Portia was responding well to the IV's and the antibiotics. Thankfully the PICU rooms were all suites and Bill and I were able to sleep and stay in the room with her. Throughout our stay we had so many visitors, we are truly blessed to have such a great support system. Numerous friends, family, and Lifechurchers came to bring us food, to pray with us, and just to love on us and Portia. The hardest thing about the stay is that we weren't able to hold Portia the first few days we were there. She had so many tubes and IV's in her. She had a feeding tube, an oxygen tube, fluid IV's, and 3 antibiotics going. Then finally on late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning we had a breakthrough. On late Wednesday we were able to bottle feeding her, and one of Portia's nurses did the late night feeding at 2am and discovered the bottle nipples we had been using were too difficult for Portia to use. Meaning she was burning more calories and energy than she was taking in. The nurse switched the type of nipple and it was a night and day difference! The nurse said that could have been Portia's problem...she wasn't getting enough to eat and became dehydrated!
We continued to wait for all the test results to come back, and so far the 24 hour and 48 hour tests all came back negative! Dr. Malik wanted us to stay throughout 72 hours just to make sure nothing came back positive. The nurses were able to take out the feeding tube and oxygen tube on Wednesday and on Thursday Dr. Malik discontinued her antibiotics because Portia was doing so well! She was more responsive, holding her body temp, eating well, and gaining weight! When Portia was admitted she had dropped to 5 lbs 15 oz and when we left on Friday she was back up to 6 lbs 3 oz! Dr. Malik was truly amazed at Portia's recovery and was thankful that we brought her in so soon because she was extremely worried about her when we brought her in on late Monday night. Dr. Malik said we were looking at staying in the PICU for at least 7 days and we were discharged in 4 days!
We were so thankful for God's healing on Portia and for the wisdom her doctors and nurses had. We were sent home with an apena and heart monitor to monitor her for the next 30 days just to make sure she didn't have any other apenic episodes. But we are just so thankful to be back home!
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| This was on Thursday...she was a brand new baby! |
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| We were able to finally hold her and dress her! Best feeling ever! |
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| On our way home...bye bye PICU! |
