Elsie's first days

Elsie has spent her first few days in the NICU at Children's Hospital in St Paul, after her transfer at 2am on Sunday morning. She was transferred there so that she could be on CPAP - a pressurized air mask for newborns that need help breathing. She was only on this for a day, and then moved back to a high-flow cannula tube (Sunday). After another short period of time to stabilize her breathing she moved off the air assistance all together (Tuesday afternoon). 

Meanwhile, xrays showed that she had a little fluid in her lungs, but that her lungs are fully developed. Could be pneumonia, the start of pneumonia or just fluid taken in during delivery. Either way, they assume that is irritating her and hindering her breathing as well. They also decided to treat her with antibiotics because pneumonia is common and moves quickly to other systems in the body. So she has an IV as well as a feeding tube and monitor cables. She tangles easily!

Overall, she is expected to make a full recovery and this will be a blip on the radar once it's all done. She's given us a little heartburn, and it's hard to see her with all the tubes... but at the same time so wonderful to see the big changes in her every day. She improves by the hour and today she really looks like a regular newborn by the way she moves around, grabs our fingers, the amount of time she is awake and alert. We get to see her little personality emerge every day. I think she even responds to our voices now - but I may be imagining it. :)

Lynden holds her for the first time since she moved to Children's - Sunday evening. Lynden spent all of Sunday at Children's to be with his little girl. She's wearing the CPAP mask in this picture.

 Britta holds her skin-to-skin (or Kangaroo Care) - Monday afternoon. Elsie is back onto the high-flow air tube. Britta is happy to be discharged from Woodwinds early so that we can all be together again.

 Our sweet little Elsie. For the first two days she would be at her calmest and breathing steady when we held her or laying on her tummy in her isolette.