Another day, another appointment

Well, Claire and I are home after our 4 hour doctor appointment this morning.. no joke! I had no idea I'd be spending my entire morning at the hospital. We started by having Claire weighed and measured. She is up to 8 lbs, 6 oz... which means she gained 14 oz in 8 days.. whoa!! This baby sure can eat!! :) The doctors are very pleased with her weight gain. With the amount this girl spits up, I was worried about her weight, but she's gaining like a champ! After taking her vitals, we had to go to another clinic where Claire had a chest xray. It was so sad to watch.. they restrained her arms and legs to get the pictures and she screamed the whole time.. not fun for mom, who had to stand by and helplessly watch. After that, we went to a third clinic for her echo cardiogram. When that was done, we went back to the first place we were and she had an EKG. Then we went to another place where she got some blood drawn. Then we finally saw the doctor. Whew!

The doctor said that her EKG looked very normal for a baby her age. The xray showed that her lungs look good. He also said that she still has both holes in her heart but that the one in the lower chambers, which is the more serious one, appears to be getting smaller and less blood is flowing through the hole. That was really good news! He predicts that it will close on it's own, without requiring medication or surgery. Of course we won't know for sure until it does, but that's what he is guessing. He said that her need for oxygen has nothing to do with her heart and that it most likely is due to PPHN - persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn. The way I understand it is that she has high blood pressure in her lungs. (I'm sure Justin can do a better job explaining it.. maybe I'll have him blog about it when he gets home. :) I don't really understand why she has it because most often this is seen in full-term or post-term babies, NOT pre-term babies. But, leave it to us to have some rare thing happen! :) He said that most of the time the pressure gets to it's lowest point by two months of age. He thinks that by her two month check up, the pressure will have lowered and she'll be able to breathe on her own. So, now we're praying for that!

We have 4 doctor's appointments for Claire in January - 1 with opthomology, 1 with cardiology, 1 with her pediatrician, and 1 with the neonatal specialist. I'm really hoping that by the end of January, she'll be off the oxygen and monitor and won't require all of these extra appointments. Oh, but we do see dermatology again in March... :)