As you can see, Jennifer finally got to do kangaroo care with Emily. Unfortunately, this seems to depend heavily on the individual nurse’s discression and some nurses think it’s harmful for parents to hold their babies. (We’ve even had nurses tell us we can’t even touch her and need to keep the isolette doors closed at all times.) However, one of Emily’s primaries was on a couple of nights ago and she says she likes for the babies to be held as soon as they are stable enough. Emily really liked it – her O2 saturation levels went up to 100% for the two hours she was being held by Mommy. She’s had a pretty good week – she’s been stable on the regular ventilator, breathing 44% oxygen and she’s now on full feeds (8 mL every two hours!). They plan to start fortifying her milk today. She will soon be IV free. Her weight is apparently somewhere between 660 and 710 grams, but they can’t be sure because she has 25+ gram diapers. She was also retaining some fluid earlier this week, but some medication helped to clear that up. She has finished the antibiotic course she started last week and cultures of the fluid they’ve been suctioning from her lungs have been clear of bacteria or white blood cells, so the medication seemed to do the trick. (There had apparently been a minor concern about some bacteria found in her breathing tube, but it apparently didn’t make it into her lung tissue and cause a full-blown infection.)
We are hoping for an uneventful Labor Day weekend and look forward to holding our daughter again – some of her primary nurses are on duty this weekend.
Tony