April 24, 2020 - Day 6

No one is allowed to enter the NICU. But today, our neonatal doctor made us go inside to show and discuss our baby Apollo's current status. Me and my husband had a whirlwind of mixed emotions upon seeing Apollo for the first time...

Dr. Colasito -- our neonatal doctor -- told us that Apollo's activities today weren't good. She started off by telling us that she found a swelling on our baby's head. Initially, it would be easier to identify what was the cause of the swelling if there was a portable cranial ultrasound. Despite the hospital having a cranial ultrasound at the first floor level, it cannot be transported at the second floor where NICU is at. And it wan't also an option for our baby to be brought downstairs. From that point, we knew we had to source a portable cranial ultrasound elsewhere. Second, she had to stop baby Apollo's feeding of breastmilk because his abdominal area started turning dark/greenish-blue. They had to get a blood sample again from him to find out the cause of this.

Apart from this, Dr. Colasito explained to us what happened from the moment our baby Apollo was born. Initially, our baby's APGAR score was 0 -- meaning, our baby did not have a heartbeat and was not breathing. His APGAR score only improved to 1 after five (5) minutes and improved again to a score of 7 after 20-30 minutes.

Around 10:00PM, we were informed that we needed to look for a blood bag of O+ RBC so that they could perform an immediate blood transfusion to Baby Apollo. Fortunately, around past 12midnight, a good friend of ours works with Red Cross and was able to connect us immediately to get a blood bag. My husband travelled back and forth from Binakayan Hospital to Red Cross Mandaluyong despite the lockdown and curfew.

We could not emphasize enough how grateful we are for all the efforts, support, and prayers that everyone has given us.