5 pounds!

Madison weighs 5lbs. today. She is totally off the oxygen now and continuing to work on bottle feeding.

4 oz!

Madison gained 4oz over night, she is now 4lbs. 11 oz. She is also continuing to do well off her oxygen.

Madison's Home Improvement

Today Madison got the top taken off of her home. So far, she has been able to keep her temperature up. They have her in clothes and wrapped up in extra blankets to keep her warm enough. She also has been off of oxygen since about 10:00 am. She is continuing to do well with her bottles too. She drank 25 cc's out of one today. Her weight is up to 4lbs. 7oz.

I added a few more pictures to Snapfish as well.

Food Time

Madison is 4lbs. 3 oz. She is getting fed every two hours right now, and is getting one bottle a day.

She is also close to being able to have the top taken off her bed. This is determined by how well she can keep up her body temperature.

She has also had her oxygen piece changed from the high flow down to the lower flow.

I also added some more pictures to Snapfish today.

Baby Santa

Bottle Practice

Madison is 3lbs. 11 oz. She is also starting to practice drinking out of a bottle. Today she drank 6 cc's (milliliters) out of a bottle. It was her third try. Her feedings have gone to 21 cc's every two hours as well. AND, she is also able to wear her own clothes now!

Gaining Fast

Madison's weight is up to 3lbs. 6oz., almost 7oz. She is really starting to gain fast. She was getting fed continuously each hour but is now getting fed every two hours so she can start getting on a feeding schedule. She is doing great!

Picture Link

I just wanted to repost the link to the Snapfish sight were you can view all the pictures of Madison. It is http://madisonmarie.snapfish.com/snapfish and the password is hinch.

Feeding Tube

Madison got her feeding tube moved from her mouth to her nose on Sunday because she threw up and the doctors thought it was making her gag.

They also turned down her air flow from 3 liters down to 2 liters.

Today Madison weighed in at 3lbs. 1oz. She has gained 3.5 oz. in the last two days!

Big Girl

Madison is continuing to grow bigger and stronger. She is 2lbs. 11oz. and she is 37.25 cm long. For her feedings, she is getting 7.2 cc's continuously every hour. They adjust the amount she is getting fed everyday according to her weight.

Pictures

I added some more pictures to Snapfish from this weekend.

Sunday

Madison is 2lbs. 8oz. For her breathing, she just have the little tube those goes to her nose and around the back of her head. She is being fed continuously 6.5cc's every hour. She also got her PICC line, which was her main IV with extra fluids and nutrients, taken out yesterday. She is doing great!

Update

Since I wrote the last post a few hours ago, I have another update to add. Madison pulled out her respirator (breathing tube) tonight. She is fine. They put her back on the CPAP and will keep her on that as long as she can do well with her breathing. I guess she decided she wanted her breathing tube out.

Over 2 lbs!

Madison's weight is up to 2lbs. 5oz. She was also started back on breast milk yesterday after being taken off of it for her surgery.

The bleeding in her brain is also continuing to decrease so that is another good thing to hear.

The doctors said they will probably try to take her off her respirator in the next few days and put her back on her face mask she was on before her surgery.

Madison also got upgraded to the next size in diapers.

I also posted some more pictures on Snapfish from last weekend.

Success!

Madison's surgery went perfectly. She made it through and is back in her room hooked up to everything and resting. He incision was only about an inch on her left side.

Heart Surgery

Madison will be going into heart surgery early tomorrow morning. It is a fairly major surgery but not uncommon for babies her age. The surgery is short and will only take about 20 minutes, the complicated part is moving her to and from the operating room. The surgery is to close the PDA (Patent Ductus Arteriosus) in her heart, which is a duct that is usually open before birth but is supposed to close after. The PDA causes blood that is supposed to flow to her body to flow to her lungs instead. It has been causing a few problems with her breathing and the amount of oxygen she is getting. Madison's PDA did not close when she was born so they gave her two rounds of medicine to close it but that did not work. Having the surgery will help her breathing and will also help her gain weight faster, which are both very important for her at this point. The doctors said her health will most likely decline after her surgery, but this is normal. She will have to be put back on her ventilator and her lungs will not be working as well.

Sponge Bath

Madison is 1lb. 15oz. today. She also had her first sponge bath, and Kara said she liked it. They also discovered Madison has wavy hair.

The doctors also found some bleeding in her brain recently, but it has started to resolve, which means there is less blood each time they have checked it.

THANK YOU!

Thank you everyone for your continued support, thoughts, and prayers! Everyone is very thankful and appreciative of all the help and support of Kara, Jeremy, and Madison.

Special Time

Now that Madison has gotten her breathing tube out, Jeremy and Kara have gotten to spend a lot more time holding her. I think they are both happy about that.

Picture

Here is a picture of Madison without all her equipment.

Breathing Tube be Gone!

Today the doctors' took out Madison's breathing tube! She is now using a CPAP which is a mask that covers her nose. It has continuous pressure so her lungs don't completely empty out. So she is breathing on her own, but with a little bit of help. The doctor's said it is common for a baby Madison's size to have to go back onto the respirator, so I guess we will just have to wait and see how she does.

She was also up to 1lb. 12oz.

Last night, Madison was put back on breast milk. The doctors had stopped it while she had some medicine for her heart, but now she is back on track.

Kara also got to spend about an hour today holding Madison. This was the second time Kara got to hold her.

Feeding Increase

Madison's weight is now up to 1lb. 11.3oz. Her feedings went from 1 cc every four hours on Wednesday, to 1 cc every two hours, and now to 1 cc every hour.

More Pictures

I uploaded more pictures of Madison to a website. If you join the group you can view them. The site is http://madisonmarie.snapfish.com/snapfish and the password is hinch.

Holding Madison

Madison is continuing to gain weight. She is now up to 1lb. 9oz. The doctors measure how much food she has digested with each feeding. At every feeding, she digests a little bit more food than the time before.

Another huge milestone: The nurse took Madison out of the incubator and Kara and Jeremy got to hold her for the first time today.

Bowels are Working!

Madison pooped! She did a few small ones yesterday and today she had a larger one. This is great news. It means her bowel system is working, which is where the doctors thought she had an infection.

They also started her back on milk today. She got fed at 5:00pm and so far she is keeping it down.

Weight Gain

After Madison's weight got down to 1 lb. 4oz, we are happy to report that she has been gaining weight for the last two days, and is now up to 1 lb. 8oz, which is more than her birth weight!

Kara also let me know she now has both her eyes open.

To test if Madison had an infection, the doctors took a blood culture and let it sit out to see if any bacteria grew. So far none has and that is good news. The doctors are giving her a seven day treatment of antibiotics. During this time, they stopped feeding her milk and she is back to the IV feedings. When her antibiotics are done, they will start giving her milk again.

Contact Info

If anyone wanted to send a card or anything to Kara, she doesn't have an address right now. You can send whatever you would like to me, and I can take it down to Kara and Jeremy on the weekends when I go and visit. If you have any questions or would like my address, you can email me at stull_amanda@hotmail.com.


Things that would be helpful for them are gift cards, gas cards, and lots of prayers and support!

Anything that is sent to me for the family will be given to them as soon as possible

Possible Infection

On Sunday night, Madison got sick. She was throwing up and her color didn't look good. The doctors decided to treat her for an infection until they got her blood work back and knew for sure what was making her sick. She was given two antibiotics. I talked to Kara today (Wednesday) and she said Madison had not thrown up since Sunday and she had gotten her color back and the doctors said she was doing as well as she could be once again. They were still waiting for the test results though.

Welcome To The World

Kara and Jeremy welcomed their daughter
Madison Marie Hinchey on October 15, 2008 at 11:09 am. She was born at 24 weeks and six days. She weighed 1 lb. 7.9 oz. She was 30 centimeters long, so that is about 11 inches.

she was born, she was hooked up to oxygen to help her breathe. By the next night, she was needing the least amount of support possible for breathing.

After she was born, no one heard anything from the doctors for probably five hours. Finally that night, Jeremy was able to take up the family that had come down, and we all got to see her. Kara got to go up later that night. Since she had a C-section, the doctors didn't want her getting up too soon. At this point, everyone was so exhausted, and I think Kara and Jeremy were just relieved to know Madison was doing as well as she could be.

Madison is very active too. She is always moving her arms and legs, and likes to play with all the tubes and wires that are connected to her.

Saturday, the doctors started feeding her breast milk every

few hours. Kara has also been able to change her diapers

and take her temperature if she is visiting at changing time.