Olivia Marissa Antonina Shipman

I will keep this blog updated with current info on Olivia's condition...

5/16/08
Olivia was born on Thursday morning at 3:20 AM in Los Alamos. 7 pounds, 10 ounces. 19.5 inches. The labor was very easy compared to last time, and Petra only had to push a total of three times over a 5 minute period. What a blessing! Petra was up and walking a couple hours later, and was healthy enough to be released at 11:00 AM under certain restrictions (which, of course, she rarely follows).

Olivia was born with meconium ( her own feces in the amniotic fluid) and had swallowed and breathed it into her lungs. This caused a serious condition in her lungs. A helicopter was called in and arrived at 9:30 AM. It took until Noon to stabilize her enough for transport, and she was taken to Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque.

Each report is worse than the previous, and they are not sure she will make it. Among the current complications are the meconium in her lungs (causing something like a chemical burn), bacterial pneumonia, pulmonary hypertension (capillaries around her lungs will not open enough to absorb oxygen), an unknown infection, and improper blood flow due to her body not transitioning from the pre-birth blood route that bypasses the lungs to the post-birth route that is permanently rerouted to the lungs (I imagine it like a frog's metamorphosis, though it usually happens fairly suddenly when the lungs start absorbing oxygen for the first times).

5/18/08
Her current treatment is that she has a machine breathing for her, and she is on 99% oxygen and 1% nitric oxide (NO2 acts to stimulate the capillaries open). She has an IV going into her belly button and another into her arm. She is also on blood pressure meds and is heavily sedated. At my last count she is hooked up to 13 different monitors or machines and has had over 12 Xrays and 2 ultra sounds. She is in isolation in the Intensive Care Unit, and though we were able to touch her with gloved hands yesterday (after a 3-minute antibacterial scrub and wearing a smock), we are now not allowed to touch her or even talk to her for fear of agitation or stimulation. This restriction is expected to last at least another 2 days. She has not been given any milk or other nourishment yet so that her energy isn't diverted to her gut. We have not yet been able to hold her and probably won't this week.

The doctors can't yet tell us that she will survive. Good news is that they have told us that if she does that they do not expect her to have any long-term effects from this. They say that she is very sick and when she gets better she will be all better. In the best-case scenario she will be in the hospital down here for 4 weeks. We are living at my grandma's house in Albuquerque, and at least for now my mom and sister are with us to help with Juuli (who we have not told anything to yet other than that Olivia is really tired and sleeping at the hospital).

We are trying to stay hopeful and keep a big-picture perspective of the whole thing. We have been in touch with our ward, so they sent down a care package to us today though we are physically just fine and don't need anything since we are with family.

Right now, we are not answering the phone or checking in with family/friends. If you are dying to hear anything you can call my mom (my new secretary) at 470-0408. You can also email me at laivamies@hotmail.com or Petra at petrap78@hotmail.com or keep checking this blog.

5/19/08 AM
Today is a good day so far. It is the first day that her support has not been increased. They are now trying to fine tune her treatments to her exact levels, but she has responded to them and is finally stable. We have been warned not to let this get our hopes up that she will not worsen more in the future, but we should still celebrate this as a huge accomplishment for her. If no new issues arise, she will definitely make it. She is a fighter!

The only new bad development is that she is jaundiced. Her bilirubin level yesterday was 6.4 and today is 9.5. They will not treat it until it breaks 10.

We learned that there is something called "rounds" every morning at the NICU, and we are invited to attend, so we did so this morning. Rounds is a meeting with the physician in charge, the charge nurse (for our section of NICU), the attending nurse (Olivia's personal attendant), the NICU nurse practitioner, the NICU pharmacist, and anyone else who needs to be there. It is rapid fire and full of information and collaboration between them all to make sure a plan for the day is laid out for Olivia with everything being quadruple checked. It was REALLY reassuring. After, they explain things to us in lay terms and allow us to ask questions.

Their main plan for her today is to let her rest and lay off her as much as possible. They used the metaphor or performing a full court press on her yesterday and Friday, so they need her to recover not only from the sickness, but from the additional trauma they have put her through. No new treatment or meds today unless it is dire.

For those who know or want to research, here is Olivia's current IV meds:
Fentanyl .5ml/hour
Midazolam .52ml/hour
Dopamine 1.58 ml/hour
NACL Heparin 1ml/hour
Neotrace 8.4ml/hour

Other meds are supplemented as needed through another IV opening in her bellybutton. She is heavily sedated and kept sleeping.

Her stats this morning were:
112 beats per minute heart rate
98% oxygen absorption after the heart (trying to keep it as close to 100 as possible) , 95% before the heart (just need to make sure it never drops lower than after the heart %)
36 degrees Celsius (normal)
blood pressure is 55/34 with a mean of 43 (they are trying to adjust meds to elevate it to 50)


I will post pics later.