Emily had a good day. She was desating (low O2 levels) when we first got there. Which was strange since she wasn’t getting that low before we got there. We had arrived late after trying do a dry run of putting in the car seat, which failed badly, and getting in an hour long traffic jam. The nurse tried raising her O2 levels and that didn’t seem to work. Finally after about two hours of this Emily clearly had enough and started to brady (low heart rate) which she rarely does on her own. It turns out that her tube had moved (or she had moved it) and was no longer in position. She got a new tube and the nurses and doctors spent a bit of time working on her to get her to recover from this (she was bradying and had desats that told them that the tube wasn’t exactly where she likes it.)
After that she had a good rest of the day. She was active and alert when they were done messing with her tube. Tony got the two “wide eye” pictures when we were allowed to see her again. She had her top up (when looking below at the pictures of her bed you will see a white stripe near the top of her bed. From this point upward lifts up so that the doctors/nurses can access her easier) and so we were not shooting pictures through her plexiglass. In one picture we think she is smiling. She clearly responded when Tony and I came in and started talking to her. She really lit up! Arms and legs going and her eyes got wide. I think she has been smiling for about 3-4 days though I am sure that the nurses think I am crazy.
They started fortifying her milk again. So far so good from what we hear on that. So she is now taking 9 ML every 2 hours that is fortifed to give her more calories. On that note they did weigh her last night. She is now 1 lbs. 12 oz or 780 grams. They stopped her diaretic so some of this could be water weight. However we will take it!
As you can see in one of the pictures I was able to hold her again last night (I am holding her pacifier so don’t think that I have strange shaped finger nails). I perfer to hold her during the day but I will take the night time too. The main reason for that is because I am more alert in the day then I am at night and I can therefore hold her longer. She did well with it. I could tell that she really liked it too.
The picture of her on her belly we took just before we left for the night. She is sucking on her thumb. This is her new trick for today. When the top was up on her bed I was puting my hand (finger) in her hand. I let her move it around. She clearly wanted to put my finger in her mouth. I wasn’t quite allowing that but I did encourage her to put her thumb in her mouth. She tried a couple of times but then gave up. Clearly after she was put back in her bed and settled down she found this on her own. To my knowledge this is the first time she has ever done this. It is amazing to me how much she is really starting to act like a baby now! I know that sounds strange if you have never had a micropreemie or if you have never seen her, but trust me, she didn’t really act and look like a full term baby just a few weeks ago.
By the way, she went through 3 outfits today! I had purchased 3 outfits for her and she got them all dirty! Now you can see why I do Emily’s laundry more then I do ours! The outfit that she is currently in is the hospitals.
That is all the news I have for now.
Jennifer