Discharge Planning?!

Day 83

Emma is still going strong!  She has been doing wonderfully on the bottle!  As with everything, they have taken things slowly as far as bottle-feeding with Emma, since it takes a lot of work for her to nurse.  They started off trying the bottle once a day, and now they have moved to once per shift (every 12 hours).  She is doing great!  Her first try, she took 20 mL; her second try, she took 30 mL; and last night she took the whole bottle (35 mL)!  The doctors and nurses have been very happy with this progress.  They'll continue to increase the frequency of her bottle-feedings from once per shift to every other feeding to every feeding.  We're just so thrilled!  Emma is still gaining weight and is up to 1855g, which is almost 4 lbs., 2 oz.  She is also 17 inches long!!!  Compared with 11.6" when she was born, that is a huge amount of progress! 

Emma is still on the nasal cannula and doing very well.  She's been hanging out around 25% oxygen which is perfectly fine.  We had been expecting that Emma would still come home on oxygen (as is the case with many preemies and babies with respiratory disease), but the doctors yesterday said that they didn't think she would need it! 

One of the most encouraging signs we've had this week is that we got a call from Emma's case manager wanting to start working on discharge planning!!!!!!  Emma still has some time before her actual discharge, but the process is getting started!!  We'll need to take an infant CPR class and make sure we have a pediatrician all lined up and a whole list of other items, but we could not be happier.  We're still planning on another month or so until she actually comes home.  They will not set any specific date for her homecoming; it will remain a day-to-day analysis until they give the final approval for her to be discharged.  I've heard from other moms of preemies that this is one of the most frustrating parts; every day you think could be "the day" and it keeps getting pushed back.  At this point, we'll take that frustration if it means she's almost ready to be home! 

One piece of not-so-great news is that we did get the final results of Emma's vision test and it looks like she does have some mild ROP (retinopathy of prematurity).  It is stage 1, zone 2, which means it's not very serious at this point.  The stage refers to the severity, and the zone refers to the location in her eye.  Research says that stage 1 means "Mildly abnormal blood vessel growth. Many children who develop stage I improve with no treatment and eventually develop normal vision. The disease resolves on its own without further progression."  She will have a follow-up appointment with a retina specialist in a week or two and we'll continue to monitor this going forward.  Nothing to worry about too much at this point. 

Overall, lots of exciting news!  More pictures will be coming soon, I promise...