Saturday, December 17, 2011

What's in a name?

Scott and I had a running list of girl names for most of the pregnancy. I kept the list on my I-Phone and I would update it every time we heard a name I thought sounded list worthy. We also did a lot of googling of   baby names although I would change up the search words just to see if I would get a new or different name to add to the list. "Baby Names, Girl Baby Names, Celebrity Baby Names, English Baby Names, Popular Baby Names, Unusual Baby Names, Baby Name Meanings" etc etc etc. It was harder than I thought to come up with two names (four actually when you include middle names). Do the names sound good together? Will they roll off the tongue when I am shouting for my FOUR children....Jake, Emmett, ? and ?.  Ahh the pressure.

When it came down to it (in the hospital room after my water broke), we wanted names that were special to us and the generations before us. We wanted the girls to be named after the strong women in both our families. Ruby Margaret is named for Scott's step-grandmother and his biological grandmother on his Father's side. His biological grandmother (Margaret) died when Scott was little, and Ruby is the woman that his grandfather married after his grandmother died. Scott's grandfather passed away many years ago, but Grandma Ruby is still a special part of our lives. She lives in St. Louis and she is one of the spunkiest, sweetest, most fashionable, energetic women I've ever met. She is in her 90's and she told me on the phone this week that she was a little tired, because she headed up the decorations committee at her Retirement Home.

Millie Durand is named after my Mother and Scott's Mother. My Mother's name is Mildred, so Millie is in spirit named after her. We just couldn't use the actual name Mildred for reasons that I think most of you understand (as does my Mother). Durand is Scott's Mother's (Laura) maiden name. My Mother is called Mimi by her grandchildren and Laura is called La La by her grandchildren. We couldn't survive without Mimi and La La. They have stepped in to help us time and time again and our children adore both of them. My Mother is one of the strongest, kindest and most giving women in my life. She has been here for me in the most selfless way. I hope that I can be the kind of Mother that she is to me. La La has an energy and enthusiasm that is contagious and always brings a smile to those around her. She also has such a kind heart, and I can't believe how lucky I got to have such a sweet Mother in Law. You always hear horror stories about in-laws, and I seem to have hit the jackpot with Laura, Bob and Anne. We are truly blessed. I don't know how we would have made it through all our life challenges without our families support.

Today's report on Millie is that she continues to do well off the ventilator. Her chest X-ray looks about the same. She hasn't improved, but it will take awhile for the right side of her lungs to look better. The good news is that it isn't worse, and she is tolerating the nasal cannula on room air oxygen (21%). Her feeds have progressed and she is now getting 3 ml's of breast milk every 3 hours. Her jaundice is still an issue. They decreased her bili lights to 1, but then increased back to 2 when her labs came back today. She is still weighing in at a hefty 1 lb 15 ounces, but I expect she will start to increase soon.

Little Ruby is also still on the nasal cannula and 21 % oxygen. Her nurse noticed last night that her belly is starting to look a little discolored. She called the nurse practitioner and they ordered an X-ray of her abdomen. The X-ray showed a little gas in the upper part of her intestines but was otherwise normal. The neonatologist was concerned when he saw her this morning. He has ordered blood cultures to be drawn tomorrow morning to rule out infection. He also heard a heart murmur in the last few days that sounded worse to him today. This is the same patent ductus arteriosus that Millie has. The other possibility for the discoloration is that her blood is not oxygenating well due to the PDA, and so her intestines are not getting good oxygen perfusion. The MD put her on Indocin which helps the PDA to close, but it means that she can't get any breast milk feeds (not sure why). They are not putting Millie on Indocin yet, because they usually give the PDA 10 days to close on its own, and she is not having any problems from it.

PICC lines were attempted again last night and failed. They will try Ruby again in the morning. They did have to insert a peripheral IV in her leg to give her the indocin. They girls can't keep the umbilical catheters much longer, and they are no longer getting blood to draw up from the umbilical lines. This means they will have to stick both girls to get blood tomorrow. Once the PICC line is in then they get give medication and draw blood from the line.

Please pray that they will be able to get Ruby's PICC line placed tomorrow (and Millie's but not sure when they are attempting hers again). Also pray that her blood cultures will be negative, because an infection would be very harmful to her.

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