Steps Back

This just is not my weekend.  Well, really, not Olivia's weekend but she seems to be oblivious to it all.  She's just happy as can be.  Cooing and giggling.

So here's the skinny.  On Thursday evening her sats started going down and finally that night we had to put her back on the oxygen.  Hoping that it's just the nasty air but can't be sure.  She's not on enough oxygen to worry.  I'm just annoyed since I kinda love seeing that girls face better than I can with the oxygen on.  Then yesterday (Friday) we headed down for the swallow study.  Not only did she fail but she failed with flying colors.  In the past she has passed on nectar thick liquids (thicker stuff is easier to swallow) but failed on the thinner stuff.  Well yesterday, after tiring her out some, she failed on the nectar too.  There was discussion on where to go from there.  Melanie, my absolute favorite speech therapist in the whole wide world, wanted to make sure she kept practicing and working up her strength by taking 5 ml's by mouth but the dr's were going to have to make the final decision.  The 5 ml's is a small enough amount that she hopefully won't tire out and aspirate it.  Also, they suspect the NEC was caused by the Simply Thick that we've been using to thicken her milk.  So, that means we're having to switch to Thick It (pretty sure the devil invented this stuff) which doesn't bond with breast milk so she's going to have to switch to formula.  She can still have my milk through her feeding tube though.  Anyway, I hadn't been expecting Olivia to pass her swallow study since she hadn't eaten orally for 2.5 weeks but I didn't expect to go back.  The worst part is, it's not that she digressed.  It's that we didn't tire her out enough at the last swallow studies.  I'm not mad at the speech therapists because even at those last swallow studies Melanie took her time and didn't rush Livie through it.  Instead I feel horrible because I've essentially been slowly drowning my baby when I've been feeding her.  I know it's not my fault and I've already had people telling me not to feel that way but hurting your child, even unintentionally, is just not something that any sane person wouldn't feel some guilt over.  So, once we got back to our room after the study I called Andrew, locked myself in the bathroom, and a good cry.  Then had another good cry when I talked to my mama and she asked about her oxygen.  Gave myself a stress headache but I do like those cleansing cries.

If yesterday wasn't enough, this morning I found blood in Olivia's stool.  At this point I'm not sure what that means yet.  It's definitely not the simply thick this time since she hasn't had that in her system in 2.5 weeks.  It may or may not be a dairy allergy.  Last time I asked them about that they said it would've manifested itself a lot sooner than now.  If it is NEC again, I think that would qualify as that "one more setback" they said would send her in for her early glenn.  I'm actually handling this better than I did yesterday's events.  Maybe it's because I got it all out of my system yesterday but at this point I'm at the "REALLY?  SERIOUSLY?" stage.  I may break down after it all settles in and we find out the new plan but for now I'm just...whatever.