12 weeks

Thanks cousin Claire for the shirt. How does it look with my capris? Sleepy baby. Elise in her sling given to her by Aunt Tiffany.

Well, we had Elise doing pretty well this weekend. "Had" being the operative word. She started getting more fussy and vomiting more with her feeds. She was getting to the point where she was not only failing to meet her need for calories, but also not meeting her goal for fluids, as indicated by her poor urine output. There was clearly a need to place either an IV or replace the NG tube. The IV would give her the fluids she needed, but would not give her the calories she needed. So we made the decision to let them place an NG last night, hoping to bridge her back to good oral feeds after a few day. Elise absolutely hates tubes being placed down her nose, but they got it down without too much difficulty. However, after a few miutes she began coughing, having more difficulty breathing, and dropped her oxygen saturation. They bagged her and started chest compressions after her heart rate began to drop. She began to recover, but again needed further chest compressions shortly after. They began her NG feeds a few hours later, and this morning we began trying bottle feeds, without much luck. We are trying every three hours, but she is only taking, at most, half of what she needs to. We give the remainder of her feeds down the NG. With her coding three times in the last week I have decided to postpone my education to relieve some stress about traveling to residencies and interviews. I will probably return this winter, but will graduate in 2010. This will also give me the opportunity to schedule more preferred rotations, perhaps seeing some residencies that I would not have been able to. This will also help Kristin in more smoothly returning to work. I will be studying for the computer-based portion of my boards until 8/8, and then will be working my part-time job at St. John's and taking care of my family. Love you all,

Jason