Little Dude got born

Thanks! If it's spells of forgetting to breathe that's the last thing
keeping a baby in the NICU, usually their discharge is set by a
countdown from the last event. That way you have a time sample of X
number of days to prove that they won't do it again (or at least prove
it as much as you ever can). In our NICU it's commonly a 5 day
countdown from the last spell. His first episode was pretty extreme
compared to most, so he's on a 7 day countdown, with his last episode
last Thursday. He still sometimes has his oxygen levels drop at the
start of a feed if he's feeding too hard, but those episodes don't
count against him. Since I can recognize them and deal with them,
they won't kill him. And absolutely no one really expects him to have
any misbehavior that will keep him there longer.

Ahhh, that makes sense, it occurred to me later it was probably
something like that. I'm sure in some places they would have
automatically admitted him to the NICU anyway, I had a friend here who
had a big baby, no GD and they said he had to go in for blood sugar
checks, of course his blood sugar did drop, but he had no symptoms which
I've since discovered that most evidence points at assymptomatic blood
sugar drops being a non issue, such that testing purely large for
gestational age babies may actually worsen outcomes. I only thought it
was odd once I remembered that the baby next to us when I had DS was big
(just under 11lb iirc) and no one was at all concerned, they were far
more concerned about DS who was IUGR, but just scraped above their
automatic admission criteria. Luckily at that hospital their was a
transitional care ward, so they had facilities for extra monitoring or
intervention without full on NICU admission, thankfully we didn't need it.

Cheers
Anne

Congratulations, Kate!

You have convinced me about the gestational diabetes thing. Please
put a reminder to yourself in your "baby" folder. Another thought
would be to evaluate your diet anyway, for your own well being.

Pologirl

On Mar 25, 3:41 pm, Pologirl wrote:
Congratulations, Kate!

You have convinced me about the gestational diabetes thing. Please
put a reminder to yourself in your "baby" folder. Another thought
would be to evaluate your diet anyway, for your own well being.

Pologirl

Overall I was pretty good about diet and exercise -- I only gained 25
pounds and have already lost 20. At one point I started spilling
sugar in my pee and so did a random glucose check that came back
high. So I expected my glucose tolerance test to come back abnormal
and started to evaluate my diet. I realized that I eat as healthy as
anyone, but definitely not a diabetic diet, as I have a lot of carb-
based meals. I then had two normal glucose tolerance tests and a
normal random blood sugar. I would need to change my eating habits
pretty dramatically in order to shift to a diabetic diet and it would
only be healthier for me if I were, in fact, diabetic. I've asked my
nurse practitioner to order me for a hemoglobin A1C, which provides an
average glucose level over a period of a few weeks -- would be
interesting if it came back high.

Kate, ignorant foot soldier of the medical cartel
and the Bug, four and a half and three quarters
and Little Dude, 3/19/08

Wow, what a ride! So your daughter was *not* there, as it ended up?
I'm glad all seems to be going well now. It sounds as though
everything was handled really well.

--Helen

On Mar 24, 11:43*pm, Akuvikate wrote:
Short version: Little Dude was born on March 19 at 8:53am. *He weighed
9lb 12oz and was three and a half weeks before his due date, making
him a little bit premature. *He's doing very well now, but is stuck in
the NICU for a few more days because the first day or two he did some
dumb preemie stuff (like forgetting to breathe when he was eating).
He's had an insanely comprehensive workup and so far basically
everything's normal.

Congratulations!!! Sounds a bit more dramatic of a beginning than a
mama likes, but I'm glad things look to be good now. My cousin is
positively huge (measuring over 38 weeks at 34 weeks), and her first
was over 10 pounds. I wonder if she has undiagnosed gd going on.

Welcome, Little Dude!

Joy

4 kids (9, 7, 5, and 2 1/2)

On Mar 31, 12:06 pm, "
wrote:
Wow, what a ride! So your daughter was *not* there, as it ended up?

She was not. The plan was that if things were happening in the middle
of the night, my mom would come to the house and they would stay
home. I went into labor at 11pm and he was born just before 9am. On
top of it being the middle of the night, she'd been having fevers to
103-104 all week. I went in to check on her an hour or two into
labor, which of course woke her up and her temperature was ~103. I
gave her some motrin and snuggled her back to sleep without letting on
that Little Dude was preparing to move out. She woke up again later,
found my mom in our bed, and got very excited with the realization
that DH and I were at the hospital and she'd have a baby brother very
soon.

I'm glad all seems to be going well now. It sounds as though
everything was handled really well.

Thanks!

Kate, ignorant foot soldier of the medical cartel
and the Bug, four and a half and three quarters
and Little Dude, 3/19/08

Congratulations, Kate!!!!!! and welcome Lil Dude
thanks so much for sharing the details -- i really appreciate it,
having never been through it before!
warmly,
Yael


On Apr 2, 1:29 am, Akuvikate wrote:
On Mar 31, 12:06 pm, "
wrote:

Wow, what a ride! So your daughter was *not* there, as it ended up?

She was not. The plan was that if things were happening in the middle
of the night, my mom would come to the house and they would stay
home. I went into labor at 11pm and he was born just before 9am. On
top of it being the middle of the night, she'd been having fevers to
103-104 all week. I went in to check on her an hour or two into
labor, which of course woke her up and her temperature was ~103. I
gave her some motrin and snuggled her back to sleep without letting on
that Little Dude was preparing to move out. She woke up again later,
found my mom in our bed, and got very excited with the realization
that DH and I were at the hospital and she'd have a baby brother very
soon.

I'm glad all seems to be going well now. It sounds as though
everything was handled really well.

Thanks!

Kate, ignorant foot soldier of the medical cartel
and the Bug, four and a half and three quarters
and Little Dude, 3/19/08

Congrats on the arrival of Little Dude. You sound like you coped
fantastically with his dramatic early days. I hope he's back home with
you all really soon.

Jeni