Latching On & Holding

Sept. 23

I’d held Stella briefly a few days back – for about 1-2 minutes, but tonight I had the first opportunity to hold her for an extended period of time, about fifteen minutes.

The nurse wrapped her in a blanket. I sat in a rocking chair and held her close to my chest. She was wide-eyed, and she was active, churning her right arm in and out of the blanket, burrowing into stomach with her feet, flopping her big head left and right.

There is some receptivity, some inquisitiveness, some spark of life in her deep blue eyes, which seem to occupy about half of her face. When she is not grimacing, which is often, and when her eyes are perceptive and clear, her eyes take up half the territory of her meager face.

Big news on the feeding front – Jenny was able to nurse Stella for a while today. According to the night nurse, Stella had “no problem latching on.”

That was the good news. The bad news, kind of worrisome. The cyst that had shown up in Stella's lungs some three weeks back was re-examined by X-ray today, and the results were mixed. The cysts have grown in size slightly. I picture a small, bubble-like mass that develops tinier bubbles on its surface. That is the expanding cyst system....The plan now, which only makes marginal sense to me, is to wait until the twins head home for a follow-up X-ray to see if the problem has gotten worse. If it has, it could mean surgery for the little girl. Can you imagine? Surgery on those tiny lungs? Makes me shudder.