From Peter

The really tough part about having a NICU baby is dealing with the constant ups and downs. One day is great and the next day is a real fight. You can't really get too excited about progress because there is a good chance you will be taking a step backwards tomorrow. There is this unsettling feeling that the ground is constantly shifting under your feet

With that in mind, she has had a really good week.

Lungs: On Monday night they took her off of the ventilator and put her on CPAP (Continous Positive Airway Pressure). CPAP helps keep her lungs open after she breaths out and decreases the effort needed to take a breath. She had a little trouble on this machine keeping up her oxygen saturation. They went back to the same ventilator as she was on before, but this time used a different mode of ventilation. She is on IMV (Intermittent Mandatory Ventilation) through nasal prongs/face mask. SO I guess technically, she is not off the vent, but she is no longer intubated. IMV is a vent setting that allows the patient to control more their own breathing and is often used to wean patients off the vent. She has done really well with this setup. She has gone up and down on her oxygen requirement (has to keep it interesting I guess) but she has been hanging in there.

Heart: Seems to be doing really well in this respect. She throws a fit when the nurses mess with her to change her diaper or come into her space to do anything. This serves to greatly increase her blood pressure, but it comes back to normal quickly after closing the doors on her plastic box.

Feeding: She is currently on 10 ml of breast milk every 3 hours and seems to be doing really well. They started fortifying her breast milk today. Normal breast milk and formula is 20 cal per ounce. They add a packet full of goodies to her breast milk to increase the caloric content to 22 cal per ounce. Her stomach can only hold so much liquid, so you have to concentrate the amount of calories per ounce of fluid that she receives. They said today that she is getting to the feeder grower stage in the next few weeks. I can't wait!!! That just means that all of her medical/ organ problems will be addressed and she will just be sitting around eating and getting bigger. She already looks bigger to us.

Thanks for all of your prayers!