Our little baby girl is 6 weeks old! This puts her at 30 weeks, 2 days (gestational age) and means we have approximately 10 weeks left in the NICU. Two more weeks and we're half way there!
Here's the latest and greatest:
Weight: 738 grams (1 pound, 10 ounces)
Feeding: Currently, Charlotte Amalie is taking 15 mL (.5 ounces) every three hours. This is considered full feeds! She is no longer on TPN (an IV nutritional supplement-- it provided her electrolytes and proteins and such when she wasn't eating) and her feeds are "fortified" to 24 calories/ounce. They hope to have her up to 28 or 30 calories/ounce, but they increase the fortification slowly. The fortified breast milk provides a high concentration of calories/ounce, but it also adds salts and protein to the milk. This helps her to get larger, of course, but it is also critical for her lung development.
Lungs: She's currently on a wean of Decadron (the hefty steroid), and will be off of that completely in a few days. She's on the SiPAP machine again and her O2 requirement this morning was only 35%! (You may remember that room air is 21% O2. Since she's not very efficient at breathing yet, a lot of the air from the SiPAP machine "escapes" through her mouth. For her to be able to keep her own O2 saturations up on only 35% O2 is great!) We're crossing our fingers that she doesn't "rebound" when she is off of the steroid completely-- meaning her lungs would become inflamed again and she would require more respiratory support. We'll see in a few days!
Medications: CA is officially IV free. She is getting all of her medication through her NG tube and all of her liquids from her feedings. Such a big, big girl :) She's still on caffeine (to help with her respiratory function), morphine (to help with the irritation from the steroids) and she is being weaned from Decadron.
Random: CA is loving her pacifier. I cannot believe they have one her size, but they do and she LOVES it. Which is awesome, because it means she has a good suck reflex. (That'll be important when they try to bottle feed). Also, CA is a totally Daddy's girl. Peter was able to Kangaroo Care with her yesterday and her vitals were PERFECT. I held her for about 10 minutes and she was not as excited. Dad definitely wins. It's pretty cool though that she's starting to recognize us.
she's IV free? WAHOO!!!!
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the updates. You sound so upbeat!
ReplyDeleteGreat news! And in reference to being a Daddy's girl... I absolutely adore the earlier picture with her eyes open looking at Pete. So precious! Our thoughts and prayers are continually with you all.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed with all the information, stats, medications, and changes that you keep up with (not to mention all the emotions to go along with it). Thanks for doing such a great job explaining things and keeping us updated. You're great and we hope CA's O2 levels stay good and that her weaning off the steroids goes well (otherwise you might have to put her in Major League Baseball with all the other steroid users- hehe!) :)
ReplyDelete"She's still on caffeine"
ReplyDeleteI have a bottle of grandpa juice set aside should she needs some to make the transition off the raw caffeine.