Home (Again...)

Lorelei is home. She came home this morning (well, technically yesterdat morning, considering the current time...). Shortly after she arrived in Gouda the monitor was taken off, but she still had one IV line on her foot, including a cast to keep it in place... That last IV line came out last night, after her last dose of antibiotics. So, this morning we found just Lorelei in the bed, nothing else :-). We were home around 10:30 and after that spent the day, well, basically just like an ordinary day with the family actually, and that felt so good! We fed her whenever we wanted to, we held her whenever we wanted to and we put her to bed whenever we wanted to. In short, WE took care of our daughter, not someone else...

I know it was only two weeks, but it definitely felt like a lot more... Lorelei is over 6 weeks old now and she has been in the hospital almost 5 of those weeks! So, it feels like we hardly know who she is or how to take care of her.

Well, all that changed today and it is a wonderful feeling. I am looking forward to many more of such ordinary days!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Back in Gouda

Lorelei is back in Gouda, that is, in the Hospital in Gouda. That means she is doing a lot better. Yesterday she was taken off the respirator and that was basically what kept her on the ICU in Utrecht. She was taken off yesterday morning, and started breathing, drinking and everything right away! There wasn't really a problem. So, this afternoon she was transported back to Gouda where she will stay in the hospital until she is ready to come home. She still has a feeding tube, but that is rather useless, because she drinks so well from the bottle. She also still has an IV line which they use to administer antibiotics, but technically this could also be done orally. Well, we'll see...

It is soooooo good to see her like she is now. She is no longer drugged, so she is awake and alert. She can drink from the bottle, which is nice because we can take care of her again, feeding her the bottle anyway. And it is good to have her back in Gouda because we can just walk to the hospital, rather than drive for 35 minutes...

It has been a really hard two weeks, but she has recovered and as far as anybody can tell right now she survived this ordeal pretty much unscathed. So, now we just have to wait until she is ready to come home. We hope this will be before the new year. Then we can finally start taking care of our daughter ourselves and getting to know her! I can hardly wait...!

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Signs of Improvement

Well, Lorelei has been in the hospital for a whole week now. That means she has been hooked up to the respirator and all the countless other things for a week because in that respect nothing changed. That is, she is off her sleeping medication, so she is now sleeping on her own so to speak. That is one sign of improvement that was started yesterday.

That was started to accomplish the second sign of improvement, her breathing policy. So far the machine was breathing for her, determining the pressure, the rhythm and the intake of oxygen. As of today she is determining the rythm herself. This is actually quite a big step towards being able to breathe on her own again... The pressure and amount of oxygen are still determined by the machine and the tube is still in her nose, but hey, we like to hear any sign of improvement at this point.... Anything at all!!!

The third sign of improvement is in the blood. It is the CRP value (C-reaction protein). That apparently is an indication of the amount of infectuous activity in the blood. Well, this value was 89 mg/l on friday, 44 mg/l yesterday and 22 mg/l today. 10 mg/l or less is "normal", a value above 100 usually indicates a bacterial infection, a value above 40 is indicative of a viral infection, I think. Anyway, her value is going down which is improvement. Also it reduces our worry of her catching something else before she gets better....

So, in many ways she is doing very well at fighting off the RS-virus. This picture was taken by a nurse last friday. It was the first time we got to hold her after her hospitalization. The nurse thought we looked so "in love" (which of cours we are :-)).


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn.

Very Sick...

Lorelei is very sick. She has the RS-virus, which is a virus that causes an infection of the repiratory system, in this case quite deep(er) into the lungs. More practically, a place in the lungs that cannot be reached by any kind of suction device. What happens is that the airways swell up which makes it harder, or in Lorelei's case impossible to get the mucus out. Apparently, pretty much everybody gets infected by the RS-virus. Adults (and older children) generally experience it as "just a cold", but babies, and especially premature babies, can get really sick...

It started on Saturday. Lorelei looked kind of pale and some of the time even blue-ish. She did drink her feeding, but not as enthusiastically as before. The last feeding of the day, around midnight, hardly got in at all. She was blue-ish at the time and felt cold. I checked her temperature and it was 34.9 (95.8 or something? 37.4 is normal body temp in centigrade). So, I called the HAP (which is basically a 24 hour GP office, the first people to talk to in such cases, at least, so we were told (I don't think I will ever call them again though, but I won't go into that now...)). They told us to come in, checked her out and told us not to worry. That sometimes happens with such young babies, especially when they have a cold (which she had...). Just put her in bed with a hot-pad (or jug is what we have here) and she will be fine. I have to admit she looked and felt fine at that time. The blue-ishness was replaced by an much more healty looking baby-pink that we were used to by then. Well, the next morning she would not drink again and she felt cold and looked blue-ish again. So, this time we called the pediatric ward in the hospital where she was born and had been the first 2.5 weeks of her life.... They also told us to come in with her and started working on her right when they saw her! They hooked her up to all sorts of stuff, gave her some oxygen, ran some bloodwork and everything. They monitored her for a few hours and then decided that she needed more support than they could give her so, she was transferred to the University Medical Center in Utrecht where they have a pediatric ICU and are specialized in airway infections. She is now hooked up to pretty much everything imaginable:

- Respirator

- Two IV lines

- Arterial line

- Catheter (urine)

- O2 saturation meter

- Feeding tube

- Thermometer

She is sedated for comfort so she sleeps pretty much the whole time. The sedation is also for preventing coughing, which can be very uncomfortable and also interferes with the respirator. Although it is really really really hard to see her like that, I am fairly confident that she is not suffering any pain right now and that she is in good hands.

I have written about Tobias' hospitalization that there is nothing harder than to see your child suffer. I have described the birth of Tobias as the ultimate high, and his ordeal with his leg as an ultimate low. Well, as you can imagine, Lorelei's birth was another ultimate high. As a matter of fact, being more susceptible to emotion since Tobias was born, one could argue that the high for me was even higher this time, emotionally anyway... But, to have another such low in such a short amount of time... It's tough...

Right now all we can do is wait and see. Her situation has been stable since Sunday when she was admitted. This can be interpreted as a good sign, which I am inclined to do. It is good because it may be an indication that she has been through the worst of it (apparently such an infection peaks before it gets better). Also it gives her time to recover somewhat. At the same time it might be that the worst (the peak) is yet to come. I try not to think about that, but the uncertainty of the situation is the most draining at this point.

I wasn't sure if I would want to add a piture to this post, but I decided to do so anyway... This picture gives you an idea of all the machines, wires, knobs and numbers she is hooked up to...

For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn

Cuddling with Nonny

Lorelei is doing great. Since she got home we went back to the hospital for a check-up once. This was last Thursday. She had been home four days then and in those four days had grown 160 grams (from 2625 at discharge, to 2785 last thursday). That is a pretty high average, especially if you compare it to the average during her hospital stay. We were very pleased! She seems to be doing rather well in many respects.

One explanation I have for this is that she gets lots and lots of cuddles! Cuddles from her mama, from her papa, from her big brother, and, as you can see in this picture, from her Nonny! Lovely picture, isn't it?

Today we went to the "consultatiebureau", which is kind of a pediatric GP or something like that, and had her ears checked. She passed the test, so no worries there, even though she had a little bit of a cold today... She is taking in her feedings more easily and we have been gradually increasing the amount.

Like I said, she is doing great!


For news on Lorelei's brother Tobias visit: Tobias Quinn