Monday 7/31

Struggling a bit to keep my eyes open tonight, but it is time for another update on Miss Madi girl.  It's hard to believe that it has been two weeks since her action packed arrival.

Things are starting to slow down a little bit, but we are still thankful for a few things that she has progressed in over the past few days.  She is now completely off of caffeine.  They put most preemies on this to avoid any bradycardia issues, but after her oxygen was off this was one of the next things to wean.  I believe I saw one alarm for a bradycardia issue, but since then she has not had any to my knowledge, so that is good.

She is doing pretty well in the weight gain department as well.  Her goal is to gain between 15-30 grams per day, averaging roughly half a pound a week with the exception of the first week, which they anticipated her weight to decrease.  This morning she weighed 1630 grams, or 3 pounds 9 ounces.  They are running into a bit of a conundrum with her current living situation.  She seems to be maintaining her temperature on her own already, but they are not allowed to move her into an open crib until she reaches 1800 grams (roughly 4 lbs).  They also are not allowed to decrease the temperature in her incubator below 28 degrees, but she is getting a little too warm in there.  I anticipate she will be 1800 grams in a week or so, but they have mentioned that if her weight gain stays steady and strong over 5 days, they will consider moving her a little early to the open crib.

The next big phase we have entered this week has to do with nursing/feeding.  She has been such a rockstar at everything else that I think I set my expectations too high for everything remaining.  Feeding has been the first issue that she has not excelled with flying colors.  It is a bit of a reality check for me, but the nurses keep encouraging me to remember that at this point she should still be in my belly and is not expected to know how to eat until she would normally be born.  I have to remind myself that patience is a virtue...one I struggle with, but hey, a girl can have goals.

We attempted nursing starting Friday.  She immediately latched for her first session and I got really excited.  But that was it for day one.  She sat there for a couple of minutes before they switched me to kangaroo care.  Due to some communication problems I was a few minutes late to her second session and they had already started gavage feeding her, so I was really upset with myself about that.  On Saturday she did about the same for the first couple of minutes with very little progress, and on Saturday night she showed no signs of cueing so I wasn't able to even try which was discouraging.  Sunday she made it maybe a minute longer and tried to suck but that was it.

Today, they gave her a bottle for the first time.  She is on a "cue based" system which basically means if she is showing any signs of rooting or being interested in the bottle, they will offer it to her during her feeding times.  She showed signs of being ready today, and I helped feed her the first bottle.  The rules are a little different from a full term baby, but I was able to get the positioning and rules down a little bit.  She actually ate 15 cc of her 35 cc bottle, so in my opinion, that is great.  I asked the nurse if that was good but she just said each baby is different and progresses at a different rate.  I was thankful that she did show some progress in that area though and I will take it as a win.  I was starting to get a little bummed with this part of the process.  It will still be a long road for nursing, but we will get there eventually.

Another minor bummer...Madi has her first yeast infection.  I'm not exactly sure how she contracted it, but the nurses assured me that it is also common in preemies.  I can barely see the rash, but they will administer a special lotion on her hiney for seven days and hope that it doesn't spread.  We have to wash hands very thoroughly after changing her diapers to make sure I don't get it as well.  This was a small reminder to us that her immune system is still very fragile.  The nurses reminded us that even during the transition home when we finally get there, we will need to be vigilant with hand washing, touching, and making sure people don't...sniff sniff...kiss her.  That was a little hard to swallow for a mama that craves to love on her girl, but we understand where they are coming from and want to do our absolute best to keep her healthy.

The last big milestone we hit today was actually for me.  I had my two week follow up with my doctor and I was finally cleared to drive!  I was thrilled about that since it has been roughly 6 weeks since I've been able to drive myself.  I'm thankful that people have been so gracious as to help me when I needed a ride, but I am really really grateful to not have to be at anyone's mercy anymore.  Now I can get back on track with my visitation routine and not have to worry about inconveniencing anyone or worrying when they might already have plans.  When I drove myself to the hospital for my second visit today, I turned up the radio, sang at the top of my lungs, and released some of that stress that has been harboring itself up for the past six weeks.  It was a relief to be able to feel in control of something...for once.

Oh...and I guess I can't leave a blog without a cute pic or two...so here's one of my girl today, right before she ate almost half of her bottle.  No matter how long our journey might be, I'm so proud and thankful for her.  She really is my hero, my Madi Grace.