Our Best News Yet

From the pictures associated with this post, I think you can see that Madeleine continues to improve. We took this picture last night as Madeleine was awake and alert for over half an hour-- by far the longest we've seen her alert. This was the first time where Kirsten and I felt really comfortable playing with Madeleine and she responded really well to our interactions tracking back and forth with her eyes and generally having a good time. Suffice it to say, we left the hospital floating.

I spent an hour this morning holding her at her bedside and her good mood continued as did good news from Madeleine's doctors. Madeleine continues to receive 1 cc of food/hour and has had no signs of residuals in her stomach (a very good sign.) Her overall comfort level and clinical appearance is further encouraging and the doctors are hoping to begin increasing food in the near future. They took an X-Ray this morning and they see some progress. They are going to take another X-Ray tomorrow morning to be safe and if it comes back positive, they'll begin increasing her food tomorrow afternoon. The goal is to continue feeds every three hours and every 12 hours (every 4th feeding), they will increase by 1 cc. The ultimate goal is to get her feeding enough where they can remove her IV-- at her current weight, she would need to eat 25cc's of breastmilk every three hours to allow them to remove the IV. We've been warned that we're still weeks away (at best) from such a scenario, but we feel great that we're trending in that direction.

We're currently awaiting results of an echocardiagram taken yesterday on Madeleine's heart. This echo should provide additional information regarding the blood clot/thrombis in her heart and should also let us know how well she is handing her AV Canal issue (the missing central valve in her heart.) We're hoping that the X-Ray will indicate that the clot is slowly decreasing in size. If not, when Madeleine has heart surgery on the AV canal, the surgeon will most likely remove the clot at the same time. (the clot is located in the same area as the missing valve.) As far as the canal itself, the echo should alert us to any potential signs of distress. While it is always possible that the heart could begin to cause trouble, Madeleine's continued growth and positive signs indicate that this is unlikely. There is no doubt that Madeleine will eventually need heart surgery, but as time goes by and Madeleine continues to improve, it is increasingly likely that this surgery won't be scheduled until months down the road.

You may be trying to piece together a calendar of prospective dates, so let me try and lay one out for you. (NICU Disclaimer: Dates are all tentative and can be expected to change at a minutes notice.)

- Begin Feed Increases: Friday, April 11.

- Reach full feed level of 25cc's every three hours: May 2 (this is agressive)

- Reattachment surgery: May 30th. (This is a wild guess).

- Recovery from surgery and Madeleine prepared to come home: July 4th (another wild guess)

- Heart Surgery: Sometime after October 1, 2008.

Again, these dates are extremely tentative but it may help you see what we're up against. Kirsten and I have settled into a fairly standard routine and while it is time consuming, we're really enjoying the time we spend with our daughter. We'd obviously prefer to have her home but in the end, we just want to be happy parents with a happy and healthy baby. In some ways, we're already there and we're steadily headed toward a full time arrangement and we really can't ask for much more.

That's all on the medical updates. Please check back for more (hopefully) good news tomorrow afternoon. Also, check out our snapfish site for additional pictures of Madeleine. (If you can't tell, I'm the annoying father at the hospital that won't stop taking pictures.) In case you forget, the site is: http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=186529629/a=13247378_13247378/t_=13247378.