Will update soon...

If my evening goes as planned, I'll be posting a pretty long update tonight... There are new pictures and videos to tide you over until then.

Six Pounds!

Sadie is six pounds, one ounce today! She's doing really well in the "gaining weight" department. She still needs to work on feeding but she's progressing quite well. She's being bottlefed pretty much every other feeding now. The problem with the "stuff" in her nose is probably reflux. Holding Sadie upright during and after feeding her has drastically reduced her number of desats. She's been off the low flow nasal cannula since early yesterday.

There are new pictures and videos from the past few days, uploaded for your viewing pleasure.

Almost Six Pounds

When Sadie was weighed last night she was 5 pounds, 15 ounces. I have no doubt she'll be six pounds sometime today. The physicians orders yesterday permitted Sadie to be bottle or breastfed every other feeding as tolerated. This means that it's the nurses decision to bottle or gavage her based on how she's doing. That's great, but still needs to learn how to eat her whole bottle. The last couple times she's gotten tired and quit at a little more than half her bottle. She'll need to drink every bottle, every feeding before she'll be able to come home.

The only other problem with Sadie is that she's producing a lot of "stuff" in her nose. She's been desatting a lot lately (the percent of oxygen in her blood is going below 88%). She'll sound congested and the nurse will suction out A LOT of stuff from her nose. After that, her oxygen saturation levels are good. It may be reflux or it may be a dry nose from having the CPAP and nasal cannula. We'll be talking to the nurse/doctor about this.

I updated the pictures so there are some new ones available.

Moving Rooms

There has been a lot of room moving the past two days. One good move and one bad. I'll start with the bad first...

After we visited Sadie yesterday, I turned my cell phone back on and it said that I had a message. It was Bev (Jen's mom) and she said that she was driving Mike (Jen's dad) to the ER. Mike was burned pretty bad when he was working on his car. He was trying to fix a coolant leak when a hose came off and sprayed him with hot coolant. After his pain was stablized, he was admitted (hense moving from his bedroom to a hospital room). We visited him today before we visited Sadie and he seemed to be in pretty good spirits considering the situation. He has first and second degree burns on his abdomen, neck, lower face, arms, and hands. The doctor said that he's in the hospital until Saturday or Sunday mainly for pain management. He has some medication that he's applying to the burn sites. I don't think they are too worried about scarring.

The other move was a good one. At 3pm today, Sadie was moved from Room 1 to Room 4 in the NICU. Although there aren't technically rooms where healthier babies are taken care of, the room Sadie is in has one nurse for three babies opposed to Room 1 where the ratio is usually 1:2. She ate okay today at her 2:30 feeding. She drank half of her 40 something mL bottle and the remainder was gavaged. When I called tonight to check on her, she weighed 5 pounds 11.5 ounses. The 2 ounses more than yesterday and 5.8 ounses more than when she was born.

I finally got the photos up to date and added one more video, so you have more to look at now.

I'm exhausted. It was a busy day with work, dropping Aedan off at Madai's, going to the hospital to see Mike and Sadie, and keeping the home fire burning. Jen's already sleeping and I'm about to join her in her slumber...

Three meals a day

Just a quick update from live inside the NICU...

She's doing well. They've increased the times she can bottle or breastfeed to three times every 24 hours. That's great news as she is continuing to progress. At her 2:30 feeding she was able to breastfeed for 10 minutes and then she drank all of her 21ml bottle in 4 minutes for a new speed record.

Self-Inflicted Tubectomy

Sadie continues to do well and is progressing on her eating. She was able to breastfeed for 20 minutes today and after that only drink 9cc's from the bottle. She's tried, but hasn't really breastfed much at all until today so that was a big achievement for her.

I called the NICU at nine tonight expecting to get a report on how much Sadie drink from the bottle and how much they had to gavage at the 8pm feeding. The nurse said that Sadie drank all 40cc's of her bottle at 5:30. Five-thirty? Turns out Sadie decided to give herself a tubectomy (she pulled out her feeding tube) right before she was supposed to be gavaged so they ended up bottle feeding her. The good news is that her left cheek gets a break from having the NG (the tube) attached to it. It's the right cheek's turn. The better news is that she drank her whole bottle in 25 minutes. That's very good! She just needs to continue drinking her whole bottle every time before they'll up her bottle/breastfeeds to three times every 24 hours.

For me, my first half day back at work went well. I felt missed which was nice and everyone was asking how Sadie and Jen were holding up. I work with a great bunch of people! They even surprised me with a basket of goodies for Sadie and a gift card to Target.

Jen's recovering extremely well and is able to do more and more every day. She's almost back to normal. The pain she has laying on her side or changing positions in bed is lessening as well.

It's after 10:30 and I still haven't updated the pictures. That makes two days I owe you. I make sure I get them uploaded tomorrow. Sorry to keep you waiting!

No news is good news...

Sorry for not posting an update yesterday. Things have calmed down a bit with Sadie so there isn't as much breaking news as there was before. The main thing that Sadie needs to learn how to do is eat. She's up to 42cc's every three hours and they are adding vitamins and fortifier to her milk. She's doing pretty well at drinking her bottle twice a day. As long as she keeps that up, the next step is to let her bottle or breastfeed three times a day.

The other change is that I'm starting work tomorrow. I'll be working half days, but it will still be a significant change for both me (getting up a lot earlier) and for Jen (taking care of Aedan on her own).

I do have new pictures today, but didn't upload them yet. Sorry to keep you waiting but I need to get to bed!