Update for Sunday, March 27

Well, it's been a busy week for Miss Katie Grace. The coursework in the Infant Special Care Unit keeps our girl busy these days. She's passed Body Temp 101, and is now allowed to live in an uncovered plastic bin where she rests comfortably all wrapped up like a burrito. Katherine passed Oxygen 101 - Intubation a few days after her birth, and Oxygen 201 - CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) a few weeks after that, and now she's enrolled in Oxygen 301 - Nasal Canules, where she's only one notch away from straight room air. The "professors" here have begun teaching Nippling 101, and Katherine passed her first pop quiz with a 10cc feed on Friday. Katherine was such a good girl this week, she was allowed her first non-parental cuddle from her Grandma Teresa.



Katherine was surprised today to learn that the Easter Bunny knows how to find little girls even when they're not at their homes. Since she doesn't yet have any teeth, and the sucking thing is new too - her Daddy helped her eat her Easter candy and told her all about it. Katherine did want to send a special thank you to her Grandma Carol in St. Louis for the very pretty Easter dress.



We were just about to sign off and end this post, but we have some late breaking news stories from our nightly phone call to the hospital - Miss Katherine has crossed the 4 pound marker, and now weighs 4 pounds, 1 ounce, and she nippled her first entire feed this evening! HOORAY!!!

Update for Tuesday, March 22

Ladies and gentlemen - IT'S GRADUATION DAY! Miss Katherine Grace McDermott has graduated today from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her new home is the Infant Special Care Unit where she will start to learn the skills she needs to go home. Katherine's goals now are to learn how to eat through a nipple and to regulate her own body temperature. They'll continue to wean her from the oxygen, and they'll move her into a regular baby crib when she's ready. It seems like the limitations on only us holding her will be eased a bit now, so perhaps the rest of her family can start to hold her soon. Since the move was from the 6th floor to the 2nd floor, Paul is saying now, "one more floor to the door". We're all very happy today!

Update for Monday, March 21

You guys will not believe your eyes when you see the photos we have to share with you today! Katherine not only crossed the 3 pound milestone - she blew it away! Our sweet girl is now a whopping 3 pounds, 6 ounces! Compare this photo with the one below where she's in the same position - you'll never believe it's the same baby!



On Sunday, Julie tried her hand at giving Katherine a bath - well, it soon became clear that Paul will definitely have to help us during this event. Julie's hands weren't quite big enough to support an unhappy, wet, wiggly little girl while handling soap and cloth in the other hand. Katherine came through the ordeal fine, while Mommy almost needed oxygen to recover from the stress!



We also heard a nice compliment this weekend from a nurse that we don't know very well, she said that by looking at Katherine, you'd never believe she was a 26-week baby. That's about the nicest thing we could hear these days! Now that Katherine is 36 days old, the nurses in the NICU are starting to let us into their secret society... we've been let-in on the nicknames that they've given Katherine and Paul (I'm thinking we don' t get Julie's nickname while there's still a chance for severe mood instability there). Katherine is known as the "blowout specialist", as it's routine for her to seriously blowout her diaper every now and then! Now, Paul's nickname will come as no surprise to most of you - he's "the cowboy" since the nurses say he's always talking and chatting, and they say he's not quiet and serene like the other parents in the NICU! Here's the first photo of the outlaw family:



Whew, after such a long post, we're beat. Katherine says it's time for a nap. It's tired work for a little girl so busy with growing! YAWN!!

Update for Thursday, March 17

Today we heard back from the lab regarding Katherine's nasal swab culture. She does have a bacterial infection in her nasal passage that they're now treating with a topical antibiotic. We hope this clears up quickly before it has a chance to spread. Other than that, Katherine has gained a little more weight and is now at 2 pounds, 15 ounces - just spitting distance from 3 pounds!

Paul and I are also just wrapping up our first major-league battle with our insurance company over who has access to Katherine's medical records. After a heated dispute with our insurance company, PacifiCare of Washington, and their outsourced company who monitors the care of all NICU babies, Paradigm Healthcare, we've effectively removed the nurse from Paradigm Healthcare from having any access to Katherine and her medical records. It's a horrible, long, drawn-out saga that still makes me very angry, so I will leave it at this: If you mess with Julie or Katherine McDermott, look out because you'll be dealing with Paul McDermott (who negotiates with crazy criminals for a living!)

I'd love to hear from anyone who has specific knowledge of HIPAA laws regarding patient medical records privacy. The only good news that came from this situation is the prompt attention and strong support we received from the administration of the Swedish Hospital NICU.

Update for Wednesday, March 16

Katherine's bloodwork came back normal yesterday. She's got a nasal swab culture that's brewing, so we'll know soon if there's any infection in there. I went for a visit this afternoon, and she's looking much more comfortable than she did yesterday. I held her for an hour or so, and it seems like she's feeling better. She's got a new nurse these past two days - Nurse Bob - he's a really nice guy, and about 7 feet tall! It's funny to see such a huge guy calling her a "sweet little peanut". :-) We'll update again soon.

Update for Tuesday, March 15

Katherine has had a busy few days. She now weighs 2 pounds, 14 ounces. Early yesterday morning, Katherine received her second blood transfusion to bring up her red blood cell count to a more appropriate level. She also had an ultrasound yesterday afternoon that revealed a small, Grade I bleed in her head. Overall, a bleed in the head is a serious condition, but this is a small one, and more importantly, it's not an intraventricular bleed - rather, it's a small area of blood in the lining of the ventricular wall of the brain. They consider it more like a bruise that they hope will resolve itself eventually. They will do another ultrasound in a week or two to monitor her progress. Paul visited with her in the morning, and since it was my first day back at work, and the hospital is a mere 10 minutes from me, I had a quick visit at lunchtime, and a more lengthy visit in the evening. So, yesterday was a big day for Katherine, and the night nurse said she wasn't quite herself last night. Whether it was from being a bit over stimulated, or from something else, they've ordered some bloodwork today to make sure she's not beginning to fight an infection of some sort. Perhaps she was just tired after such a busy day. We'll update again when we have any new information.

Daddy and his Girl

February 4, 2005. I have taken a leisurely day off of work. Plans were dinner and a concert with Julie and her Mom tonite. This all changed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. I received a call from Julie who informs me that she is at the hospital being taken to Labor & Delivery. Thus beginning a nine day adventure culminating with the birth of my beautiful baby girl Katherine Grace McDermott.

It's the morning of day nine, and I've been at the hospital with Julie 24/7, only leaving her side for a few random errands. Due to a lack of sleep caused by Julie's contractions this past night, I'm in need of a Starbucks. As I get in line at the Starbucks, my phone rings. It's Julie on the other side telling me that the ultrasound is in progress, and she needs me back at the hospital. So, I abandoned my place in line, and return to her room quickly. The ultrasound completed, the nurse assures me that I have plenty of time to run back down to Starbucks for that badly needed jolt of caffeine. So, off I go again. This time, I make it to the front counter, get my coffee, and start the leisurely stroll back to my cell (I mean Julie's room). Phone rings. It's Julie again. Only words I hear are: "It's go time", and "Run". So there I am, running through the hospital corridors - coffee splashing everywhere - and I'm really just still needing that caffeine fix. Needless to say, I never got my coffee.

So now I'm in the operating room, the procedure has just begun when we hear ... "Oh my God, it just exploded! That's never happened to me before!" Those are words you never really expect to hear during your wife's c-section. To our relief, it was simply the heating pad for the incubator that had exploded with a splash of blue goo slime everywhere. The rest of the operation went without a hitch.

February 13, 2005 - 11:06am my life changed forever.

Today, one month later, my daughter Katherine is proving to be a Daddy's girl. When I hold her, she seems so relaxed and content, and I feel the same. The mornings I spend with her brighten my day, and makes me wish that she was home already. The day will come soon when I can take her fishing. We even bought a Moby Wrap - a wrap-around fabric carrier system - so she can watch Daddy fish.

Today's medical update. Katherine has gained 72 grams, putting her at a little over 2 pounds, 12 ounces. She's still on bolus feeds (portion of food every three hours), but they've transitioned from a one-hour push, to gravity feeds that take about 20 minutes. She is off of her temperature monitor, and we've had to revoke her application to the nudist colony since she's now allowed to wear her clothes. She continues to be weaned from the supplemental oxygen.

Here's today's picture of Daddy and his Girl.

Update for Tuesday, March 8

I visited with Katherine for a few hours today. She has reached a new milestone - she had a change in her feeding program. Instead of a continuous, slow drip of food into her stomach, today she moved to a bolus feeding program where her food is sent to her stomach (via a tube through her mouth to her stomach) in one batch over one hour. She gets fed this way now every three hours, which more closely matches how normal babies eat - in a full / empty cycle. We also finally got the results this evening from her heart ultrasound. She has persistent pulmonary stenosis (PPS) which is very common in pre-term infants. As I understand it, when a full-term baby is born, there is an opening in the blood vessel between the aorta and the pulmonary artery that automatically closes within the first few days after birth. In Katherine, her body is still maturing, and at 30 weeks adjusted age (10 more weeks until her original due date), her blood vessels have not grown enough to meet her increased blood supply, therefore the opening between the aorta and the pulmonary artery has not yet grown closed. They say this condition is not serious, and will correct itself as she grows and the blood vessels get bigger. That's all there is to report today.

Update for Monday, March 7

Today Paul and I went to visit Katherine. This was a special day because usually Paul and I alternate days at the hospital so Katherine always gets a visit from one of us, and we don’t burn out from the commute (about 65 miles roundtrip). Katherine now weighs 2 pounds 10 ounces. She had a heart ultrasound today, after the nurses noticed a very slight heart murmur yesterday. We haven’t yet heard the results of the test, but we guess that no news is good news. We’ll probably get her report tomorrow. She also had some blood in her poop the other day that we discovered was due to a small anal fissure (kinda in the same category as a hemorrhoid). This sounds yucky, but it’s not at all as serious as some type of internal bleeding would have been. I’m sure she’ll not at all appreciate this disclosure when she’s old enough to read these diaries of her life, so please don’t tell her that we told you! Paul and I continue to do “Kangaroo Kare” which is holding her skin-to-skin, which we all like very much. We’re able to hold her every day now since her vital signs show us that she’s very comfortable and calm during our visits. Katie has also been weaned down by half of her oxygen by nasal canules, so now we’re that much closer to her being able to breathe room air without supplemental oxygen. That’s it for now, we’ll let you know when we hear about the heart ultrasound.

Katherine Grace McDermott

Let's just jump right in, shall we? Last October, at Julie's birthday party, we announced some great news - we were pregnant and expecting our first child in mid-May 2005. For the first 6 months of the pregnancy, everything was going along quite easily for mother and baby, until about one month ago, on February 4, when Julie was admitted to Swedish Hospital in Seattle for pre-term labor. She was dilated 3cm and was sentenced for the duration of her pregnancy (not anticipated to be very long) to strict bedrest at the hospital.



It only took 9 days until sweet baby Katherine Grace made her early appearance. During the wee hours of the morning of February 13th, Julie contracted for 5 hours until the doctors and nurses could get it under control. Later that morning, an ultrasound showed that she was now dilated to 5cm, and both of the baby's feet were through the cervix. One emergency cesarean section later, Miss Katherine Grace McDermott made her grand entrance. At 26 weeks and six days, she was 14" long and weighed 2 lbs 5 oz.





Since her birth, Katherine has steadily progressed forward. With a few days on a ventilator, and then a few more with pressurized air in her nose, she's now only on supplemental oxygen via nasal canules. After a brief drop from her birth weight, she's now a hefty 2 lbs, 9 oz and gaining steadily. She has a penthouse suite at the NICU of Swedish Hospital overlooking downtown Seattle, and Elliot Bay. She's expected to reside there until approximately her original due date of mid-May.





We'd like to update this site on a daily basis with Katherine's progress and medical update. Please be advised that the content will be graphic on occasion with regular references to pee, poop, and blood as necessary.

Thanks for your well-wishes and your prayers, they've all apparently found their mark as Katherine has exceeded everyone's expectations since her birth.

Coming Soon: Daddy and his Girl