day 22-evening-June 17, 2008

My goodness she is sleepy. It seems like all the time. We get about 20 minutes to a half hour of attempts to try to feed her before the nurse warns us to not wear her out or she will be even less responsive next time. She's up to 36 ml of milk now, and we can usually get anywhere between 2 to 10 in her before she goes ka-thunk on us. I (daddy, Tim) got 10 in her today before she had to be gavaged, but with no residuals (anything left in her stomach waiting to be digested)(if that's something to brag about, I guess). She's got loads in her diapers, she's lost her umbilical cord stump, she's practically a newborn baby.

The best news is that she is growing. Like crazy. She was 42 cm at birth and is now 47 cm, and is up over five pounds. Her head circumference has grown as well. Her isolette temperature is now 26.0 degrees C, which is the lowest they allow it. I think she has to be able to maintain a reasonable body temperature (at least 36.5 degrees) consistantly for the next couple of days before she can be in a cradle like the other newborns.

If everything goes as planned, and we don't run into any complications like we did a couple of weeks ago, she will go off her IV tomorrow and her PICC line will be heparin-locked for 24 hours, then removed. That means she will simply be in a crib and on a monitor, fed entirely by milk. It will be nice to simply remove her from a crib without having to relocate IV lines and unplug heart and respiration monitors.

We've not been doing "kangaroo care" on her. In particular, that was difficult to do, even though it was entirely recommended, tubes and wires and all. It just got to be such a hassle. At first we were limited because of her photo therapy to break up her bilirubin, and later it was difficult because of her three IV lines (electrolytes, lipids, and antibiotics) and four lead wires (SapO2, heart and respiration) to get her chest-to-chest with her. Compound that with a busy unit and someone checking every ten minutes, and it just got difficult. We're looking forward to doing that at home during the summer anyways.

We don't know when she will be able to come home. We know there are certain criteria that health-wise she has to meet, like be able to take an entire meal in a reasonable amount of time without a gavage tube, and sit in a car seat for an hour without going below 90 percent blood oxygen saturation. We also have to spend two nights in the hospital with her, on monitors and with nursing staff nearby (there are two rooms off of the lobby of the ICN). Besides planning the two nights, the health stuff may be a ways out.

Good. That'll give us enough time to make up our minds about a car seat.

We'd sure love to have her home though.

Still have to write and send thank you cards before we wash sheets, blankets, and sleepsacks for her too.