Ultrasound Eve
Hope Licciardello
We are remaining pretty status quo here in the land of Sammi and Josie’s time in the NICU. Chris and I are pretty nervous about the girls’ head ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow. Sammi has had a history of a swollen right brain ventricle and according to our doctors both our girls are at risk for a grade 1 or 2 brain hemorrhage. This is due to their small size and because they were born before 32 weeks. We’ve been reassured that even if they do have these findings that as long as they are grade 1 or 2 there should be no consequences developmentally and the bleeding will probably be reabsorbed into the brain.
Sammi is still an escape artist; each nurse that has her is now forewarned before she manages to get to the portholes. When we do kangaroo care with her she will put up her hand and spread her fingers when she gets too overwhelmed or over stimulated. For example, mom was quietly singing to her and, well, I got the hand. I’m telling myself it’s probably because of the vibrations in my chest…but it’s probable that she was embarrassed of mom’s singing :)
Josie is such a cuddle bug that she occasionally forgets to breathe when she’s on my chest. It scares me half to death. Her O2 stats go down and she needs a little more oxygen than normal. According to the nurses Josie gets so cozy she forgets to breathe often and deeply enough. This just tells me how hard their brains have to work to perform basic functions, especially since they shouldn’t have to be doing any of this in the “outside” world yet.
