Ansley Update

Well it has been about 4 days, so we figured that we would post an update. The last few days have been very tough, but we are dealing with everything much better than initially. We are so grateful to have Ansley be a part of our family and cannot wait to bring her home. No matter what happens Ansley has brought so many blessings into our lives and we know that she will continue to bless our lives.

Thursday morning I was able to talk with the Doctor that was over Ansley, and I was able to ask her some questions. One that i think most everyone is interested in is her overall well being. I asked from the time she was born until now (thursday morning) if you were to draw a line graph in relation to her progress what would it look like, and she did her hand in a downward motion (the birth) and then a line straight across. That was hard to hear after over 30 hrs in Children's and on the cooling cap.

She explained that Ansley had not urinated except for a few drops that morning, and that they are really hoping and expecting her kidneys to start working a little better to start filter out some of the wastes in her body. She told me that her blood pressure was very low and that they were putting her on 2 different medicines to try to raise that, and suspected that she has pulmonary hypertension, so they were starting to treat her with nitric oxide (20 ppm) to help dilate her veins, to help with the pulmonary hypertension. The Dr explained that in the womb having higher blood pressure on the right side of the heart (pulmonary hypertension) is normal, but when the baby comes out and takes its first breath it usually switches over to having higher pressure on the left. They performed an Echocardiogram and confirmed that was the case. They suspect that all of her abdominal organs took a hard hit similar to the kidneys so they will not attempt to feed her anything for at least another week, maybe longer depending on how she does. All of her nutrients will continue to be supplied through an IV straight into the blood stream. I asked about potential pneumonia from the fluid in her lungs and she said that she looked at the chest x-rays from that morning and that there is fluid in her lungs but no more than you would find in any other C-section baby, but that they would continue a normal antibiotic treatment. But she said "we are definitely not out of the woods yet" in regards to overall health, however she expects Ansley to make some big improvements in the next 24 hrs.

Also Thursday afternoon is when they performed the Echocardiogram, and every 12 hours they remove the cooling cap message her head, and flip which side her head is leaning on, and at the Thursday afternoon removal they performed an ultrasound on her head to look for any bleeding, swelling, or pockets of fluid. The Dr told me that she expected to see all of the above.

Fast forward to Friday, I talked to the same Dr and she said that she is making small improvements, that she is urinating a little more, but still not where she needs to be. The blood pressure was still giving them trouble, that they kept having to go up on both medicines to try to maintain the proper blood pressure. She told me that the chest x-rays from Friday morning and that it looks like she might have some small pockets of pneumonia, so that they would keep a close eye on that and continue the antibiotics. She also told me the results of the ultrasound, and said that it looks like a normal baby's brain, no bleeding, no swelling, and no pockets of fluid. Yes that is exciting however, that does not show any brain activity, so we will have to wait until the cap comes off and the perform the 12 lead EEG, CT scan, and MRI to get more conclusive results, which will still not be conclusive, the best indicator will be the first 6 months of development says the Dr's.

Friday evening they had to give her more platelets and another blood transfusion, I believe that puts us at 4 blood transfusions. However they were able to start weening her off of 100% oxygen. By the time Rachel and I left the Hospital last night at midnight they had stopped weening it at 65%.

Now Saturday morning Rachel and I went in and the cap was removed early this morning, so they were able to take the sheets down from around her incubator so we could actually see her. Her reheating went well, the Dr said that she responded well to reheating, not to fast or slow. Unfortunately her oxygen had to come back up to 80% and she needed a little higher dose of blood pressure medicine. She also needed more platelets and another blood transfusion. She is still not urinating like she should, a little bit better, but still far off from where it needs to be so they are going to be starting some diuretics to pull the fluid from her tissues to try to get rid of it, and to try to help reduce her swelling and puffiness. We have never been so excited to see pee before! So the Dr said 2 steps forward 1 step backwards. But overall, we are happy with PROGRESS! Also one last thing, they will be performing all the major tests (CT-scan, MRI, and EEG) on Monday.

We hope this helps anyone who is/will be fasting and praying for our little Ansley. We really do appreciate all the fasting, prayers, and kind thoughts that have been sent our way. We definitely would not be able to make it through all this without yalls love and support.

Here are the pics from the camera so they are a little better than the pics from my phone. However I want to warn you about the 1st picture, it is a very sad and to me, graphic picture. But the reason I wanted to post it is to show the progress (look at her color change) that she has made and the AMAZING work that all the Doctors at UAMS and Arkansas Children's Hospital have done!

This picture was shortly after birth still at UAMS, when we were not allowed to go back so the nurse took our camera and took a few shots for us (pay attention to her color)

Right before she was transported to Children's we got to say goodbye

And she opened her eyes to let us know everything would be ok

This is where she will spend the next few weeks (as a friend of ours described this place to Rachel: "a little piece of heaven here on earth" and where miracles happen)

Her with her cooling cap, she is our little solider just fighting away!

While she had the cooling cap they had to keep the blankets around to try to keep her body temp up, so we could only make brief peeks through the blankets, but that didn't stop us from going up and just sitting next to her and Avery colored a picture for her:)

She is SO cute. No more cooling cap, although we were SOOO grateful she got that treatment we were glad when they took it off so we can see her more

CUTE

Our personal little Angel

Thanks again so much for the love, support and prayers! We can not express our gratitude for everyone's thoughtfulness and kindness; we will continue to keep everyone updated.