28 Weeks

CA's gestational age is 28 weeks today. She's getting so old (not quite "so big" yet). It's hard to believe that it was 4 weeks ago that I was sitting in the hospital wondering how long I was going to be there...

Anyway.

CA had quite the week! Here's her run down:

Weight: She's a whopping 710 grams (1 pound, 9 ounces).

Heart: CA was switched to a new medication this week to manage her blood pressure. She's currently getting hydrocortisone, which is a manufactured equivalent to cortisol, the body's stress hormone. Doctors and researchers are not sure why it affects the blood pressure the way it does, but the important thing is, it works. She's been on this since Wednesday morning and has been responding much better. The dopamine (the medicine that was making her heart contract harder) was working, but it wasn't really helping her to get better-- it just maintained where she was. Her blood pressures have been much more stable and her heart is looking better and better on X-Ray.

Lungs: Charlotte Amalie was extubated (the ventilator was removed) today! She'll more than likely have to go back on the vent tonight or tomorrow, as breathing on her own just seems to make her too tired, but she was able to wean off of the vent, which is encouraging. Her lungs have been classified as having "chronic lung disease" which means that the damage done to her lung is not reversible. The good news is that she will continue to create new lung tissue and grow new alveoli (the tiny sacs in your lungs that facilitate gas exchange), which will all be able to compensate for the damaged lung. Since her lung damage is "chronic" it will be more difficult to get her off the ventilator for good, but these chances that she has to be off of it are good-- even if they are just for a few hours at a time.

Digestion: CA is a rock star here. She's started to pass stools and they are increasing her feeds every 12 hour by .5 mL. Currently, she's at 2 mL every 3 hours, so at midnight tonight she'll increase to 2.5 mL and at noon tomorrow she'll increase again to 3 mL, etc. She needs to be able to take 10-12 mL every 3 hours to be considered "full feeds" but hopefully we'll be able to make the increases slowly and we won't have any set backs (knock on wood).

Kidneys: Yupp, they're still working like a champ.

Thank you all for being so wonderful! We're 26 days into this. Here's to another 80 or so.