happy 1 mth, minzy!

11 June

our 1 week visit was actually on 10th, but we decided to go on the 11th cos it would be Minzy's 1 mth.

i can't say how happy i am that she has gotten this far! and she was looking so so so much better when we saw her.

for one, the number of machines were only 2-3 now. and she has only one IV on her right hand. she was off the trembling oxygen. her blood pressure has stabilized so she doesn't need the med anymore. she was also passing larger amounts of poop and urine. however, her weight was still at 540g, and the doctors say that this is her actual weight without the bloat and any weight she put on from then onwards should become her actual weight. at least she looks much normal now without all the extra bloat on her neck and ears. also, they have removed her sedation so we should expect more movements, and she would also open her eyes at times.

true enough, she was still tiny but she was moving a lot! both her arms and legs were moving at once (so it dispelled our worries that she might be half-paralysed). she opened her eyes to look at us (but i'm not sure if she could actually see us, since babies can only see black and white).

i noticed her diapers were too big and it turns out that they have finished using the preemie diapers we got for her (they should have told us!!). it was so big that minzy could rest her right leg on top of it. i wonder if she kept stretching her legs because it was so tiring to rest it on top... her excretion bag seems to have gotten much bigger too. i guess she can hug it as a pillow now...

i quickly snapped this when i saw that she kept struggling to open her eyes. kyaaaaaa!!! this little cutie!!! (btw there's a baby crying super loudly in the background cos it just had a shot.. poor thing...)

nampyeon captured something even cuter. minzy stretched out her arm and grabbed the iv drip in front of her. it's so adorable i have been playing it everyday and sending it to those who knows about it. too good to not share!

today we received the labels stamped with 1 month on it. can't say how much satisfaction i derive from looking at it.

my milk volume has also increased. so much that i needed to separate it into 3-5packs, since Minzy can't drink so much at once. thankfully she's drinking 10ml every 3 hours now! please drink more!!

the doctors also told us that we needed to get the fortification powder for our milk so that the nutrients can be enhanced for the baby. it sells in boxes of 100 and can only be brought in from overseas. it's a whooping 160usd for this... whoa.

we were also told to get preemie pacifiers. i made a mistake and got small milk bottles instead... the search words they gave me in korean led to these results T_T yes, you gotta give a foreigner the picture instead of the keywords you know... the bottles are still very cute and hopefully we'll get to use them when minzy's discharged.

the actual pacifier we were supposed to get. it's called a philips wee thumbie. the ones i found was like 40usd with shipping. gg. thank goodness there was a local shop selling all products for preemies but it was still around 15usd. so cute! i wonder when she will get to use it cos her mouth's full of tubes...

there wasn't a lot that we can do for her 1 mth except give her the 'presents' that the hospital needs. hopefully she will be much bigger at our next visit... here's a final picture of my adorable minzy... (gosh, all the mini curly wurly baby hair!) just when can i touch her... T_T

i kept thinking as i look at the videos and photos... that IV cap on her right hand. i had it on me previously and it was so small, but on her it looked like a cannon (as nampyeon says)... how is she able to wave it around so frequently?

it hurts so much if my iv was pricked near the joints... and the needle was small for me. but a small needle for me is something huge for minzy.. and if i were to make a comparison, the size of that needle to her arm is like a knife to my arm... how was she able to endure all the pricking? nampyeon did tell me there were preemie needles, but i wonder how small it could be... technology is amazing... but minzy (and all the other preemies) are even more amazing, for enduring such pain when they are so so young... so much so it hurts my heart just to think about the pain she's going through. :( my strong baby...

oh, and i took a picture of her feet cos it was just so tiny and cute. those little toes. *love*

antibodies

9 June

it seems that the weight gain was due to bloatedness, and her weight soon dropped back to 540g. the doctor told us that while it seems that the infection is still there, they were convinced that the antibodies were slowing killing it. they had picked samples of the fungus from her faeces and treated it with antibodies, and it showed that it was effective. so perhaps it was being reduced, but it was just not visible or the change wasn't big enough to show that it really works.

linzy's last moments

6 June

we called the hospital to check for minzy's weight. she was at 610g and we were elated. though her infection was still there, her blood pressure was stabilizing and she was able to eat again.

that night... we had a short talk when we slept over Linzy's last moments.

of course i wasn't there to witness it, but nampyeon was near at least.
he was confused and still trying to absorb everything that happened. he was actually sleeping while i was giving birth, and was only notified that the delivery was over once everything was a done deal.
he got to nicu, and the doctors were trying to resuscitate linzy. both the twins were breathing and fine when they left the delivery room, but linzy heartbeat suddenly dropped when she was in nicu.

we realised this only after everything was over, when we started to check what people did when they had preterm deliveries. of course, the cases were far and few, but there were cases when a mom put her baby to her heart, and the baby turned from blue to pink, and eventually survived. there was also a case where nampyeon found, where one of the twin stopped breathing and the nurse suggested putting the baby next to its sibling, and miraculously, the living twin put his hand on his struggling sibling in a hugging action, and the sibling started breathing again.

there was of course not much scientific explanation for these happenings other than the babies feeling familiarity and warmth of where they previously belonged. perhaps in the twins' case - they were always together in the womb and the sudden separation left it struggling.

the thought didn't cross us because we were afraid that whatever we did would have harmed the babies. what if we wanted to hug the baby but instead of doing that, having the doctor resuscitate the baby would have helped it better? nampyeon was in a daze watching the doctors surround linzy, and one of them pressing his hands to her heart. but her heartbeat was zero, and the doctors told him that he should probably give up.

that was when he called me, as i was lying in the recovery area. my baby was dying on me and i was so far away. i couldn't do anything and neither could he. but when he recalled to me that night, he said that he should have probably went over and held linzy as she passed on. perhaps she would have felt her father's warmth as she went away, instead of being surrounded by strangers in a cold, glass incubator.

i teared when i heard his recount. i knew that while i was lying there after my delivery, i was not allowed visitors nor movement, and i could not have made it to linzy's final moments. to be honest, i didn't think that linzy would pass on. i thought she would have hung on, and waited for her mom to come see her. i knew that they wanted us to give up, but i didn't know that once the hand went off she would be gone forever. when i held her, i thought she was just sleeping. but she was gone, and they wouldn't have let me held her if she wasn't.