Today Coraline got her weekly hematocrit, which checks to see if she’s making her own new blood cells now. And guess what! She is. Her levels are great. This means that unless something crazy happens (maybe gets really sick) she won’t need anymore blood transfusions.
She is still being weaned off the IMV, which is taking quite some time, but she is still moving forward. Today she was moved back down to 20bpm, and she seems to be tolerating it really well, which is not how it went last time they took her down that low. From here she will move to a C-Pap. I think.
We had snuggle times today with her all bundled up. They have been keeping her swaddled a lot of the time because she will soon be moving out of her isolette and will need to be able to keep warm in these cold rooms.
The reason she will be out of her isolette soon is because she is HUGE. We called last night for our nightly weight-check and the nurse said, “Well, I weighed her four times just to be sure, but it says she gained 100 grams”. Ummm….ok. This brings her up to 4lb 2 oz. We’ll see if that sticks tonight. If it does then I am guessing when I get here tomorrow she will not have a lid on her bed.
After snuggle time she got to go back to her bed on her belly, which she enjoys. I caught her drooling on her hand. Not sure if it will show up in the pic very well. This is another one taken on my phone. Not the best.
We just got back from a great day at the NICU. When we got there Coraline was dressed in her snazzy zebra striped outfit, provided by soon-to-be mother herself, Amanda. It was a a tad ginormous on her, which is weird because it turns out she is pretty ginormous herself these days. I’ll get to that in a minute.
We got to hold her for a bit.
She was full of hilarious faces, which included super wide eyes and fish mouth. She also seemed amazed at her own hands.
I’m pretty sure she might have even given her Dad a little smile. Now, I am not naive enough to think that she knows what smiling is, or why or when you should smile. But she was using the right muscles!
After we had our nice visit we had bath time, where once again, she did really well. She seems to love cleanliness. After her bath she got snuggled up in a new clean onesie.
And got weighed.
You read that right, folks. She is now 3 lbs 14 oz. She is 2 oz. away from 4 lbs and is only 30 grams away from getting out of her isolette!
She also had a great day with her breathing. She was down on her O2 5% less than what she required yesterday. That is awesome. Her NP thinks that they’ll start to wean her pressure very soon to see how she handles it. She had one brady while we were there and it was very quick. She was going back up before I even heard the alarm go off.
Sorry for any fuzzy pictures from today’s post. These were all taken on cell phones. Not the best.
Today was a pretty big deal. Coraline is finally big enough to wear clothes! She needed to get to 1500g and she was up to 1550 (3 lbs 7 oz) as of last night.
After we got to the hospital today she:
Got a bath. She really seemed to like it. Considering how out of sorts she must have felt in that situation, she dealt with it really well and was very chill.
Got to snuggle with Pops. While the bed was remade…Dad got to hold her for awhile and she seemed quite content in that situation as well.
Dressed! We need to find some easier to use preemie clothes. It’s nice to have a button or zip-up front onesie, or something along those lines. It’s a lot harder to find them than you would think. We even stopped at Babies R Us on the way home to see if they had anything. Nope. Nothing. Useless. Come on, baby store! Really?
Zonked out! This was a fun, but trying, exercise in babydom. We will have more fun and exciting days like this. This yawn led to sleepy eyes, which led to out like a light.
As for news for the future…
She is doing really well on the nasal IMV and the docs and nurses have started to wean her off of the pressure. She doesn’t seem to really need it. She hasn’t been relying on it and breathes over it just fine. The machine was set to 40 breaths per minutes earlier this week. It is now set to 30. They will probably move to 20 next. Once she shows that she can deal with that…then she will either move on to the c-pap (or si-pap) or vapo-therm. We’re going to hope for vapo-therm. It seems much more comfortable for baby….so long as she can breathe.
For the last few days lil’ Coraline has been almost inconsolable at times. Today we had a great day! Nothing could bring this little girl down. She even had an eye exam where they use what looks like a medieval torture device to keep her eyes open for her. She didn’t even cry. It’s a big shift from last night when we first saw her sad little tears.
Recent events:
Had Kangaroo Care snuggle time for about 2 hours today. She tried to choke me with her very large head much of the time. She wanted her head IN my throat. When I moved her she moved herself right back. It was still nice.
Had an eye exam. She now has Stage 1 ROP. The ophthalmologist seemed unconcerned and said there was no action required cause at this point it’s not a big deal. Well…ok. So I looked it up. Yeah…not a big deal. Seems to be not an issue till stage 3. Let’s hope she doesn’t hit stage 3.
High heart rates! I guess she was in the 190s all morning. When we started Kangaroo Care she was in the low 200s a lot. I was not told that she had just had caffeine. Soooo…that would explain that. She’s back down averaging in the 180s. Still high, but not crazy. Not sure what that’s all about.
More hilarious pictures. One of her regular night nurses had WAY too much fun with her the other night, especially during and after bath time. We, unfortunately, have not been here for bath time yet so we were happy to see some pictures of her hating it. And then once she was dried off she was happy as a clam, and then was attacked by a sock monkey.
Coraline seems to be going through an angry stage. This is new for her. She very rarely ever showed any anger, rage, sadness, or even discomfort in the way that older babies would….until yesterday. Once she got the vent out, this baby found her voice. We have now heard her cry (as tiny as that cry is…you can hardly hear it) and she is doing it often.
Yesterday the only thing that seemed to pacify her was…well…a pacifier. She’s getting pretty good at sucking on it, but she still can’t hold it in herself. It just falls out if she stops sucking. So yesterday Andrew and I took turns trying to keep her from turning purple and raising her heart-rate through the roof by holding her pacifier for her. At one point she actually managed to hold it herself, but only while she was holding Dad’s finger.
When we came in today the nurse mentioned that steroids will often do this to a baby. She may have a bit of roid rage! Who knew? She needed the steroids to help out her throat before they extubated her. Today she has been grumpy on and off, but nothing like yesterday.
She hasn’t gained any weight since she’s been off the vent. They have upped her feedings to 30 cal. Today was the first day for that and so far she seems fine with it.
Coraline had a bunch of visitors today, including someone who brought her the movie with her shared name. What a sweet gift.
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