Hi Mary,
First of all I want you to know that you and your family ? and especially baby Charlie ? are in my thoughts and prayers.
Secondly, I became a first-time grandma last April when my daughter delivered a lovely pair of twin girls. Since she was going through a very high risk pregnancy she was hospitalized at 26 weeks with the plan to deliver her girls by c-section at 32 weeks (common time for her complication). Instead, one of the babies went into distress and she had an emergency c-section at 27 weeks 5 days (3 months premature).
The girls (Grace and Hope) were 2 lbs and 2lbs 5.5 oz. They went through all sorts of issues in the NICU ? Grace had a PDA that just wouldn?t close at all and finally underwent surgery to close it (surgery only lasted about 10 minutes) They both went through breathing issues, feeding issues (including some intense digestion problems for a bit), jaundice, temperature regulation, not making red blood cells ? the list goes on. They were ultimately released from the hospital after 68 & 74 days. They were both on Apnea monitors for a while at home.
When you stop to think about it, there?s so much for a newborn to learn, sometimes they do forget to breathe ? they get so involved in other things going on. Both girls were on & off the ventilator several times, graduated to CPAP, and finally just a bit of forced room air until they really got the hang of breathing.
Today they are very healthy, happy babies eagerly exploring their surroundings.
While they were in the NICU everyone learned to take it one hour at a time. It?s often described as a roller coaster ride ? big ups and big downs...
I don?t really know much about the PFO (incidentally the P stands for Patent ? which means ?open? in medical terminology. I was going to give you a link but I see Phyllis posted it before me.
I am hopeful that Charlie?s issues will turn out to be very manageable and he stabilizes quickly.
Keep up the good work grandma and, oh yeah, Congratulations!
