12 Weeks (and a day)!

Day 85

Everything is still moving along well for Little Miss Emma.  She has been working on bottle feeding and is starting to get the hang of it, but still needs some more practice.  Some days she does great and takes the whole bottle, and some days she only gets about 5 cc's (mL).  She is still working on the suck-swallow-breathe coordination, which is just going to take some more practice until she has it all together.  Sometimes she takes too much and starts dribbling out the sides of her mouth (she forgets to swallow) and then sometimes her heart rate starts to dip (she forgets to breathe).  It's all perfectly normal and she'll definitely get there in time. 

She's still gaining weight consistently and is now 1955g, which is 4 lbs., 5 ounces.  Her feeds were increased to 40 mL every three hours, and she's still being bottle-fed once per shift (twice per day). 

Emma is still on the cannula at around 28% (she had to go up to around 30% after those vaccinations she got, which they said can sometimes happen) so now they've been weaning her back down. 

Once Emma has her bottle feeding down consistently and is taking the bottle every feeding, she'll be ready to come home!  The doctors today suggested that it could be even before her due date (February 8th), which we're very excited about!  Since she is doing well with the bottle and that is the last hurdle she needs to get past, she may end up coming home on oxygen after all. 

One other issue that was brought up today is that Emma's blood pressure has been a little bit high lately.  It is another common issue with preemies, and definitely not too high at this point.  If it continues over the next couple days, they will probably do a renal ultrasound to make sure that her kidneys are working properly.  She has been gaining weight steadily (i.e., not too much too quickly, which could be a sign that she is retaining fluids) so it is likely that her kidneys are working just fine.  Although, they don't want her blood pressure to stay too high consistently since that causes unnecessary stress on her heart, so she may need to just be on blood pressure medication for a month or two if this continues.  Nothing too serious at this point, just another thing to keep an eye on.

sleepy...

cranky...

stretchy...

silly...

"talk to the hand, Mom!"

and sleepy again...

bottle feeding!!!

time for a good burp! 

aww, my first official drool stain.  now i really feel like a mom!