Emily now weighs 970 grams (2 lbs, 1 oz). She had a pretty good weekend, with excellent blood gases every day which caused the doctors to continue to wean her off of the oscillator. She was extremely active today and seems to have gotten over her respiratory infection.
Friday Emily discovered her pig that her grandfather brought for her and Jennifer named Petunia. We placed it near her head where she could reach it. First, she opened her eyes then shut them tightly several times. Then she took a couple of good whacks at Petunia. Then she tentatively touched it with her index finger. After feeling how soft it was, she started rubbing her outstretched palm against it. Then she experimented with pushing Petunia and with grabbing her nose and ears. After we came back from shift change, we saw that Petunia was lying in the corner of her isolette. Emily was desatting and was dark red in color. On further inspection, we saw that she was crying, and had her head positioned so that she could see her pig and had one arm outstretched towards it. She wanted her Petunia! Then we got the bad news from the nurse. A new policy had just been put into effect which meant that babies can’t have anything in their isolettes other than what is absolutely medically necessary, so we had to take Petunia away. Emily got very upset to see her pig taken away, and Jennifer had to try to console her, but this is the first time we ever saw her wanting something that badly. We promised her that she will have a barnyard full of these really soft animals when she comes home.
This afternoon, she was really acting up, so I put my hands in the isolette to cup her head and legs to calm her down. After she calmed down, I figured she was asleep, but the got upset every time I tried to take my hands out. Jennifer took a peak and saw that Emily’s eyes were wide open – she just wanted to be held by her Daddy! (Tonight’s pictures are of Tony rubbing her head while she was demanding attention.)
Tony