We'll Give Her a B+

Blood Type that is. She's B+.

Charlotte Amalie got her first blood transfusion today. Since she only has a tiny amount of blood to begin with, her reserves get depleted pretty quickly. They have to take blood every 12 hours to check her blood-gas levels (among other things) and even though they only take a teeny tiny amount, she only makes a teeny tiny amount each day. She can't quite make enough blood to keep up with the blood being drawn.

We knew she would need transfusions. It was still sad.

She was pretty pale went I went in to see her today. She is rather picky about the noise level around her on any given day, but she was extremely sensitive to noise tonight. Anytime a baby would cry, her O2 levels (which should be above 85%) would drop from 90% to the 70's in an instant. She just didn't have anything to rely on. Thus the transfusion.

It was the first time she really looked "sick". (I know, I know... but really, she's a pretty "healthy" 24 weeker). It was hard to see her that way, but they started the transfusion and since then her number of Desats (O2 dropping below 80%) has slowed down significantly. So that's good.

And it looks like the medicine to close the duct in her heart is working. We'll get an echo on Monday to confirm, but for now, things look (well, really, sound) good.

The up-side (is there an up-side?) to all this transfusion talk is that Peter {He's a B+ too!} gets to donate blood to be used specifically for her transfusions. {I have A+ blood so I'm out of the running}.

It feels good to be doing SOMETHING for her.