The results are in and....

...we are O2 FREE IN THIS HOUSE!!! WOOHOO!!!! I'm certain I can't express how RELIEVED I am!!!

This is how it all went down.

It is a bit of a story, so I'm not bummed if you're not up for the read.

They got here at noon something to set up the Pulseox and the Respiratory Therapist that came was the same one that had come 2 weeks earlier to set it up for her. During previous test she had gone 5 hours on room air, the idea of the test is to keep them on room air as long as possible to get an accurate reading. I guess a lot of parents freak out when their kids' numbers dip and put them back on oxygen immediately. The first go-around he told us to wait a minute or two to see if she would go back up on her own. This time he told us to wait 5 minutes or so to give her a real chance to get back up on her own. Good/perfect for babies is 92, but anywhere in the 90s is good. Upper 80s is still ok, an alarm sounds when they dip below 85, that's what they label desaturation (desat). Sleeping and eating are the times when babies are most likely to dip, and a dip is okay, a desat is not desirable, but okay if they come back up on their own. Everyone desats to some extent, it just matters how long and how low.

So the first test she had 2 weeks ago she'd dip almost the whole time she'd sleep, and eat, but would hang out in the high 90s while awake. So they told me she could be off of O2 while awake, but needed it in order to sleep and eat.

This time around she was asleep when he came, he hooked her up and she was in the low 90s, which pleased me because she was almost always in the high 80s the time before when she was sleeping. Then she ended up desatting some time after that, but always came back up on her own. The time before I'd wait, but have to give her O2 to get her to sat high again. So we kept her off of O2 all weekend this time around, since they dropped it off on Friday and don't pick it up on Saturdays. She did great while eating and awake, and would only desat when she was in one particular sleep cycle. I always knew when she was in the sleep cycle, it was about 20 min after falling asleep and I'd be watching her numbers and she'd go from 94 regularly to 88 regularly. Then she'd fluctuate between 91 and 86 and eventually hit 84 and the alarm would sound, but she'd always come back up within a second or two, and she would only enter that sleep cycle 2 or 3 times in a 12 hour period. SOOO hard to not just sit and stare at those numbers and feel my heart drop every time her sats did!!

Anyhow, we took her to church sans O2, we were pretty confident that she wouldn't need it anymore. The Respiratory Therapist called me after he downloaded her results and said he thought she was good to go, but he had to send it to the Dr to find out.

We had a Dr's appt on Monday (yesterday), I told him how the test went, he felt confident that she should be fine, and because she's gaining weight fine he said there's no reason to see her before her next well-baby check up. He said he'd have to review the results to know for sure and fax a copy to Dr Zarlingo (the neonatologist that was over her case in the NICU) and she'd have the final say.

So they didn't get the results back until today, he sent it to Dr Z and my pediatrician's nurse called me and said she'd need O2 for 2 more weeks and then should be fine....WHAT!?!?! So I asked for the pediatrician to call me and explain. He did, he said that Dr Z was worried about some of the dips that Kaebri had had and that Dr Z was going to call and explain everything to me.

She called, she said that she thought it was fine for Kaebri to go down to 1/32 of a liter of O2 and be tested again in 2 weeks (mind you, she's only ever been on 1/32 of a liter...which is the lowest you can go on at-home O2) and I asked her what she was talking about, that Kaebri had been off of O2 since Friday afternoon. She said, "OH! Was this test done completely on room air?" "Yes!" I replied. "Oh, Kayleen, I'm so sorry, I misunderstood, she's fabulous then! The dips that she had are completely normal on room air! Send the tanks back, she's just fine!!"

So as you can imagine it's been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster for me, but we're so glad to be done, and SOOO grateful for prayers!! We love our little girl and are so glad that she's in our family, and are even more glad that she doesn't have that silly cord around her face anymore!!!

Lessons learned from this experience (also known as lessons already known, but reminder lessons are necessary in this life) (there are too many to count, but to just name a few so I can review them when the Lord is reminding me of them through another trial):

--It's a LOT easier to endure something when the end is in sight...when nobody could tell me how long to expect to be carrying around my cute baby with a cord attached all the time it drove me CRAZY!!!

--Not everything is on our control (I already know that, but still like to feel like I have some say in what goes on around me)

--Learning to pray unselfishly for someone you love is HARD!! As much as I believed I was praying for Kaebri because I wanted her to get better, I came to realize that I was praying for her to get better because I didn't want to have to deal with the O2 anymore!!

--It's important to find a way to enjoy the circumstance you find your self in...not just grin and bear it until it's over...very hard lesson for me, but very important at the time.

--Prayer is a beautiful thing!!!

Now if we can only get Isaak to take his naps again!!!