Back in the Hospital

Posted by Melody

Eating slowed way down and troubles breathing returned. Last straw was vomiting up two meals and her meds. Went to ER and was diagnosed with Pericardial Effusion (fluid around heart inside the percardium, a complication from open heart surgery that tends to show up around 2 weeks after surgery if it’s going to happen– not that common. Here we are in the small numbers again). Drained off 40 ccs last night. Stable now but heart rate still very high and not breathing as well as we’d like. In addition, heart isn’t squeezing as well as it should be, so she’s gone on some new meds. Expect to be here several days. Can’t update Facebook from here and won’t blog much, but Julie will be updating Caring Bridge.

We are home

posted by Mel

Just a quick note to say that we made it home Saturday afternoon. Simone is great so far. Still on a couple of medications that she was on prior to surgery but dosages are down, and we are hoping she’ll be off them completely in another month or so. Knocking hard on wood right now, but her reflux seems to have cleared up completely– no vomiting in days!!! Also, I cannot feed her often enough. She seems to be making up for time lost in the hospital. Thanks for all the support here and on her Caring Bridge site. We love you guys!

Home at last and thrilled about it

Simone’s Caring Bridge Web site

You can view updates at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/simonelayne

Post Surgery Update

posted by Melody

Simone’s surgery was yesterday 5/21. Came through the surgery pretty well but started bleeding a lot from her chest tube upon entering ICU. Got that under control and she was stable until the middle of the night when her blood pressure dropped, heart rate went way up, became feverish(temp of 103) and she started having trouble with her mixedvenous gasses. She gained about 2 lbs with swelling. Seems to be stabilizing a bit again now, but it’s unlikely she’ll come off the breathing tube today as we’d hoped. They did take her off the paralytic, so she’s moving now and opening her eyes a little. The movement should help with her blood pressure.  Will try to keep folks updated,but it’s difficult to get away from her room and Facebook is blocked at the hospital. Setting up a Caring Bridge web site andwill probably post the url for that later.

Our experience at Riley has been wonderful, though. ICU nurses arranged for a Ronald McDonald room for us right in the hospital.We had planned to sleep in the lounge. Hoping to get another one for tonight.

Conceptionversary

posted by Mel

One year ago today Vanessa and I showed up at Dr. G’s office around 7 AM hauling a metal tank. After 17 failed IUIs, a failed IVF, and a miscarriage after IVF using Vanessa’s eggs, I had undergone immunological screening that came back positive for alloimmunity. The RE said we should try IUI again w/the addition of aspirin and L0ven0x, so we made one last attempt, simultaneously shelling out $4000 to begin the process of domestic open adoption.

I was going through the motions. I was sick of injections, sick of the progesterone rollercoaster, sick of hoping and waiting, finally beginning to accept that no baby would ever come through my body. There were 5 follicles in play that month (had taken Fem@r@ and F0ll!st!m), and I remember poking fun at myself for ever having been worried about high order multiples during previous IUI cycles where I’d had far more follicles than this and not gotten pregnant.

One of those follicles contained the egg that got together with the contents of that tank and made this:

Buffy with her puppy