Hope and Grace Day #3

With Jeni and I both being school teachers, we are often asked by parents of students who are earning less than an A average in our respective classes, "What can my son/daughter do to pull up his/her grade?" For me, this question always was sensible and would, in most cases, justify an easy answer. If a student has trouble with vocab- study it a little bit for several days out; make flash cards. If essay writing is a problem, sample responses can be the solution, etc.

Today, day #3 of being a parent, I found myself already asking that question, but to a nurse rather than a teacher. Gracie is off and running. We've been told she is ahead of the curve right now for children her age. She is off the ventilator and is even sucking on a pacifier at times. As we left the NICU tonight, the nurses were talking about the possibility of her feeding sometime in the next few days. You go Grace! If one were to give Gracie a grade for day #3, you'd have to go with an A... she exceeded expectations.

Now Hope, on the other hand, had a challenging day. When the doctor tried to extubate her (take out the ventilator), she became anxious and distressed, not responding well to the CPAP (nose breathing thingy) and was put back on the ventilator almost immediately. From there Hope regressed, requiring more oxygen and some anti anxiety medicine to settle her down to boot. Poor Hope. Going on what I know, I asked the nurse, "What can Hope do to bring up her grade?" To which the nurse smiled at me, and answered, "Nothing, she is behaving on level with other 27 week+ preemies... it is Gracie who right now is performing ahead of the curve, not Hope performing behind." This, I guess made me feel a little reassured, and also made me realize that sometimes kids can't all be A students all of the time... sometimes they just have to grow into it. For day #3, Hope would earn a B or a B-... not shabby in the least.

Tomorrow will be a trying day for little Hope. Her PDA is still a problem, so the doctors are going to give her an echocardiogram (heart test to determine if ductus is open) and a head ultrasound to look for brain bleeding. The head ultrasound is what scares me above anything else- as heavy brain bleeding could lead to a host of serious developmental problems. Let's pray tonight that Hope's echocardiogram and head ultrasound go well and that she will get her little ductus fixed and be able to get back on track to gaining her breathing independence.