Plans for going home for Thursday

Esther is going to get a blood transfusion tomorrow morning.  Her blood tests showed last week that she had become anemic.  Dr Kemna said this is typical of babies with a VSD, that they start to become anemic at around 2 - 3 months of age.  By giving her some extra blood, this will boost her red blood cell count, and that increases her oxygen level.  This should lessen the strain on her heart, make her breath easier, and give her more energy.  She's been looking pale, as well as sleeping more, and breathing hard. So I'm really hoping that this will give her the boost she needs to feel better quickly.

There are some risks with a blood transfusion, but the probability of it doing her great good outweighs the very small chance of problems associated with the transfusion.  They are checking her blood count one more time before just to make sure she needs it, though.  I spent most of the afternoon researching this as it was not an easy decision for Daryl and I to make, but we feel this is the way to go.

So right now they are poking her heal to get blood to check her blood count and to check what type of blood she has.  Then in the morning, if the blood test indicates that she is not improving from the new iron supplement yet, then they will start the transfusion around 10 am - it takes 4 - 6 hours to be completed and they watch very closely for any reactions.  Since she has an IV in place already, they are able to do the transfusion through that, so no more pokes, yeah!

So she should be ready to go home in the afternoon, and Daryl is driving down after work to pick me up.  We should get home late in the evening.  I'm so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again!

Esther has an appointment with her pediatrician on Friday (the hospital set this up for me), and she also has to go in again in 2 weeks for a blood test to see how the thyroid medication is working.  Then she'll be back her at Children's on Jan 5 for all her check ups.

Thanks for your prayers, and please continue to pray for Esther that she will get stronger and that the transfusion will go smoothly and really pay off for her.