Jaylie - Day 61 -- week 36 1/7

I apologize for the delay in updates. Things were going so well for so long there was nothing really new to post besides the fact that Jaylie is growing :). This week was a hard week. Jaylie's stomach has been distended for some period of time now, almost since birth. The problem with the stomach being distended (basically bloated) is if it becomes too distended, the Dr's worry about things breaking, like organs being stretched so far they actually start to tear and rupture. Jaylie is now where near the stage of things rupturing, but earlier this week reached a stage where the distention in her stomach started to effect other part of her body like her legs and chest. Earlier in the week, Kristina noticed Jaylie's right leg started to swell. The Dr's took a look at it and said the swelling may be due to prematurity. The Dr's continued to explain, in premature babies like Jaylie, the liver (which is responsible for processing and passing swelling the body produces) is premature and not able to keep up with the amount of swelling the body produces and therefore slight swelling may occur in the legs and such. The Dr continued to say they would only be concerned if the swelling started to effect Jaylie's breathing -- well, the swelling got worse and ultimately started to effect Jaylie's breathing. Jaylie got really swollen, so swollen she had a hard time breathing and was experiencing discomfort with anyone would touch her. The Dr's took immediate action as soon as they saw the progression in the swelling by taking Jaylie off of her feeding regimental and starting a myriad of tests to try and find the root cause of the swelling. Though the Dr's have yet to find the root cause of the problem, they have been able to successfully being the swelling under control while they continue to investigate the problem by performing xrays, ultrasounds, bloodwork and potentially exploratory testing of her upper and lower intestinal track.

While the investigation into why Jaylie is suffering form this swelling and distention is on going they have taken Jaylie off her normal feeding of breast milk and put back on a clear diet involving supplemented nutrients.

Jaylie is in good spirits, moving around good, has good energy levels and looks overall well with the exception of a swollen stomach.

Jaylie's stomach has come down considerably within the last couple of days which is a good thing.

Hopefully we will get a conclusive diagnosis of what the problem is (if there is a problem) here in the next day or so. In the mean time, please keep us in your prayers, praying for the healing, maturity and growth of Jaylie's intestinal track.

Jaylie is now 1345 grams = 2lbs 15.4 ozs (almost 3lbs!!!).

I will post more details as they become available.

As promised (like 10 days ago...) here are some more pictures from the last week:



I have posted a bunch more here Jaylie - Jan 2010

As always, thank you SO much for your pray and support!

Nathan, Kristina & Jaylie