Blood Transfusion

Today was a bit of a scary and stressful day.  My baby girl has been unable to keep her blood pressure up.  They had her on medication that was temporarily sustaining a reasonable blood pressure but as soon as they discontinued this it began to drop again.  This is most likely happening because of all of the blood they have drawn from her for testing her little body has been unable to produce enough blood to replace what she has lost.  The final conclusion was to do a blood transfusion today.  Olivia is O+ and they found a donor with an exact match.  With all preemie babies the blood goes threw many more steps of screening and they actually remove all of the white blood cells, only red blood cells are transfused into her.

They were about half way threw the transfusion while I was there.  They gave her a total of 1cc of blood today and even with 1/2 of it her blood pressure went up significantly and her rate came down to a great level.  With her blood pressure being so low her heart was forced to work much harder to move the blood to all her vital organs so it was reassuring to see this number dropping.

They were planning on doing her first tube feeding today, but decided it would be wise to wait until tomorrow after the transfusion.  I did get to swab her mouth with colostrum.  It was the sweetest thing ever as soon as I put the swab in her mouth she began licking her lips mmm Mommy's milk.... I cant tell you how grateful I am to be getting milk.  It is really satisfying and rewarding to be able to do this one thing for her while everything else feels so out of my control.  Deff a worrisome day but I know and believe it was the right and best decision for my little angel.  Stay tuned to find out how her first meal goes tomorrow.

Posting some pics of her from today ... she is getting a bit of a sun tan to help with her jaundice.