first week home

For anyone who is still reading this blog, thought I would add an update.  She's still doing great, she's around 7 lbs now, she has gotten lots of shots this week though.  She got 2 Monday at the pediatrician's office (vaccinations) and she has gotten 3 epogen shots, one on M, W and today (F).  Poor thing!  She still has a little bump where she got her vaccinations, but it doesn't seem tender or anything, I'm going to try a warm compress to get rid of it though.  She also had a bit of a fever from the shots, but the doc reccomended tylenol and that worked.

We still wake her up every 3 hours for feeding, but about once a day she decides it is feeding time.  Usually at night, she gets really hungry.  She's been taking on average about 50 cc's during the day, but then for one feeding at night she will take about 90 cc's over the course of a couple hours, then she won't take her next feeding.  It works though b/c the feeding she won't take is the 3 am one LOL.  So we get to sleep a bit more.

I've stopped pumping.  It was a hard decision to make, but I couldn't keep up pumping while taking care of her and Brendan, and she will probably never be a good nurser.  She's VERY picky about her bottles, we had to try 4 different nipples before we found one she would take besides the hospital one.  Of course it is the cheap target brand one, she won't take the expensive playtex vent air ones we got LOL. 

My mom wants to take her to church on Sunday morning.  I told her I didn't want to go b/c she goes to the early Mass (8:30, they leave at about 10 to 8, yawn!) so she said "that's fine, I can take her."  I might let her b/c then I will get to sleep in, but I made her promise not to let a ton of people hold or breathe on Meghan.  I'm still a little nervous, but I trust Mom completely, she's my guru when it comes to taking care of kids, she knows everything.  I took Meghan to her office the other day to show her off to Mom's coworkers, they loved her.  Everyone kept saying how small she is, but to me she's huge LOL.

Brendan is still great with her although he did try to get her to play catch today, luckily he doesn't have good aim @@.  We had to have a little talk about how Meghan is too small to play ball LOL.  He does let me know when I'm not giving him enough attention, today I was trying to get her bottle ready and he came up and said "I hungry Momma.  It's my Nanan's turn!"  so of course I got him a snack before I fed her LOL.  and yes, he does know his name is Brendan and will even say it correctly sometimes, but most of the time he says his name is Nanan.  LOL.  He also knows how to restart her swing, and everytime the music stops he runs over and pushes the button. :-) 

I think that's all, I'm going to go to bed now before I have to get up and feed her in a couple hours.  Hugs!

first night home

I probably going to end up jinxing myself, but she has got to be one of the easiest babies I've ever cared for!  She never cries.  We wake her up to eat every 3 hours, and she goes back to sleep after eating.  Her only problem is she hasn't pooed in over 24 hours, but I called the nursery and they said that is normal b/c of the supplements she's on, that sometimes babies can go as much as 48 hours.  SHe said if Meghan is acting uncomfortable I may want to call the pedi and he will reccomend a glycerine suppository.  So, we'll see.  Right now she's in her bassinett next to me, sleeping away.

Brendan is thrilled to have her home.  This morning the first thing he said was "go see Meghan!"  He's such a good big brother.  He helped me hold her bottle last night to feed her, and he helps me by throwing diapers away and stuff.  He's a great helper! 

I'm the happiest momma in the world :-D

here's the photos

OK, here's the photos.  Enjoy!

1. Coming home outfit, including the blanket I knitted for her.

2. all dressed in her coming home outfit.  I love those socks, aren't they cute?  A little big though.

3.  close up of my sweet baby girl

4. Yes, my eyes are red b/c I was crying LOL

5. kiss from momma

6. Momma and Meghan

7. Daddy with Meghan.  isn't she tiny in her carseat?? LOL

8. Brendan meeting Meghan

9.  ::::;sniff, sniff::::::  isn't this the cutest thing in the world?????

10.  Our family!!!

11.  Brendan holding Meghan (My MIL is helping)

12.  Daddy with his kiddos.  He was holding Meghan and Brendan said he wanted a hug too.  :-)

13.  her first bath at home.  She didn't fuss at all!

14.  She's yawning and Brendan was like "what's she doing?" LOL

15.  Storytime.  Don't mind the wallpaper boarder, we haven't had a chance to finish stripping it and put the new border up yet :-)

Details of her first day home are in the previous post.  Hugs!

she's HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG I am the happiest mom in the whole world.  Words can't describe the feeling I have when I'm holding both my kids.  It is amazing and wonderful.

We roomed in with her last night.  The nurse came in just before her feeding times, every 3 hours, to check her vitals and then we would change and feed her.  She's a little slow on her feedings sometimes, she takes the first half great but gets tired from that and is slow to take the second half, sometimes its a struggle to get her to take it.  However, she took almost the whole feeding everytime, only had 2 that she didn't take quite all of it, and she gained 30 grams (one ounce) overnight so they were happy.  This morning they came to take her to the nursery for her daily assessment and then came back in to tell us they were definately discharging her!  The nurse practitioner came in and went over a ton of stuff with us, Meghan has follow up appointments with a pediatric opthomologist to reexamine her eyes (so far they're fine), an apt with a pediatric neurologist for a final head/brain scan (her first 2 were perfect), and a home nurse coming in to give her the final 4 shots of epigen over the next week and a half.  She'll also have an evaluation by a developmental nurse to determine if she is doing things when she should, but that will be in a few months.  PHEW!  This is all in addition to her normal visits with her pediatrician, whom she will meet on Monday.  After the nurse practitioner went thru all this, she went and wrote up the discharge papers and we were out of there!!!!

Meghan looks so cute in her carseat, she's so tiny!!  Of course we have photos of everything, which Scott is working on downloading and emailing.  The camera software is on his computer of course, and I usually do this website from my computer, but later on I may just go down to his computer to upload the tons and tons of photos to this site. 

Brendan came home about an hour after we got there, after his nap.  His Grandma asked him if he wanted to go to the park (his favorite place) or go see Meghan and he said "I wanna go see Meghan!"  LOL.  He was sooooo happy to see her!  I was holding her and he came up and said "wow!!  She's sooo cute!" and touched her, then gave her a gentle kiss!  A few minutes later he was playing then stopped, came over, hugged her very gently and said "I love you Meghan!"  OMG I about cried it was the sweetest thing I have ever seen!  I'm tearing up just thinking about it!  He doesn't want to leave her side, I put her in her swing and he ran over to it and stayed right there watching her.  I did have to stop him from swinging it once or twice of course, but she was buckled in just in case :-)  She just stares at him like "who is this crazy kid?"  That's when she's awake, which is rare.  This kid sleeps thru anything.  There was construction going on in the room next to us at the hospital, and she slept thru it all.  She sleeps about 22 hours a day.  Right now she's asleep in her bassinett next to me.  I LOVE our bassinett, the basket part that she sleeps in she comes off the base and is portable.  Anyway, Brendan even held her and Scott's parents got a couple pics of the four of us, with Brendan holding her.  I LOVE saying that, "the four of us"!!!  After she ate we took the kids (another of my new favorite things to say) upstairs for bathtime.  After we got brendan washed up, he played in the tub while we washed her in her tub on the counter.  Then after they were dried off and in their PJ's they both sat on my lap for storytime.  We got pics of that too.  OMG this has been the best day of my life. 

I promise I will upload the photos as soon as I can.

carseat study update

I talked to them last night and she gained half an ounce, she's now 6 lbs 1.6 oz (BIG girl!!  LOL) and she passed her carseat study!!  Yayyyy!  I had a hard time sleeping last night thinking of all the stuff we should get and do before she comes home LOL.  We're going up late this afternoon and as of right now the plan is we won't be coming back home without her!  Scott is taking his laptop I think, so if I can I will update from the hospital. 

worried about nursing/carseat study/epigen

I went up for her 9 pm feeding to bring her carseat so they can do the carseat study tonight (yayyyyy!!)  I also tried nursing her for the first time in a few weeks.  I hadn't been nursing her b/c it was more important for her to get the hang of bottle feeding, and tonight she didn't want to latch at all :-(  I'm hoping once she comes home we can get her trasitioned easily, b/c I can't handle pumping AND bottle feeding for too long.  Right now pumping is enough of a pain in the rear b/c I have to make sure to be home every 3 hours or so.  If she's nursing and I'm out somewhere I can still nurse her.  However, if she's bottle feeding and I'm still pumping, I have to feed her and then pump which will be very difficult especially at night.  Scott will help I'm sure, but still.  I know breastmilk is best for her, and I'm really hoping she will transition, but I'm not too optimistic about it.  She just doesn't have the strength to really nurse well yet.  Bottle feeding is sooooo much easier for her b/c it just drips into her mouth if she doesn't suck.  We'll have to see how it goes, I will give it a few weeks.  A lady from church went thru that not too long ago and said she's got all kinds of info and tips for me if I need them.  However, if after a month she's still not nursing I will have to reevaluate things.  I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but we'll see.  I was only able to nurse Brendan for 6 weeks b/c I went back to work, and he's healthy as a horse b/c those first 6 weeks I know are the most important.  I think if she gets breastmilk for 3 full months we'll be doing good.  Of course I'll discuss it with her pediatrician too. 

Sorry for rambling, just had all that on my mind and needed to get it out.  I forgot to mention earlier that she is still anemic, so they are doing another round of the epigen, the 3x a week for 2 weeks shot.  Good news is that they won't make her stay in the hospital, they will have a home nurse come over and give her the shot. 

Tomorrow we are rooming in, and then friday the plan is to bring her home as long as the rooming in goes well.  She didn't want to take her 9 pm feeding for me and the nurse said if she doesn't eat for us and/or looses weight it may push back her discharge, but I think she'll be fine.  She takes most of her feedings just fine for me.  We will probably just give herbottles thru the night to make sure she is eating so that she doesn't loose weight.  I think part of the reason she didn't eat was b/c I tried to nurse first and that tires her out.  Plus she usually has one or two feedings a day where she doesn't take the whole thing b/c she is sleepy, but she still gains weight so they're happy.  I talked to the nurse about it and pointed out that if she was home and did that we could just try again in an hour or so, we don't HAVE to keep her on the 3 hour schedule they have her on, and she agreed with me.  We'll see how it goes. 

ROOMING IN!!!!!!!!!!

Well, we got the results from the PCG (pneumocardiogram study).  She's not having any problems.  No apnea, no reflux, low percentage of periodic breathing.  The pulmonologist had no reccomendations.  The pediatrician said she wants her to be nippling her feedings better, but this was the first time the pedi saw her b/c she just got back from maternity leave.  The nurse practitioner I talked to has seen Meghan several times a week and thinks she is doing great.  She said she has one or two feedings a day when she is too tired to eat the full amount, but that most of her feedings she takes just fine.  She's also been taking them in less time than she used to and with less "episodes".  Plus once she comes home if she is too sleepy for a feeding we can try again in an hour, we don't have to keep her to the 3 hour schedule.  I mentioned that to the nurse practitioner and she agreed with me.  So she asked if the carseat study had been done yet and I said no, so she said to bring the carseat and plan to room in with Meghan TOMRROW and bring her home on FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's as long as nothing with Meghan changes but that's the plan for now.  Woooohoooo!!!!!  So we'll spend the night with her tomorrow at the hospital, with the monitors, and then she'll come home the next day.  Scott's not thrilled about rooming in b/c he has issues with hospitals, but I talked him into it b/c I want to make sure we can handle her since she's not a "normal" baby. 

computer issues/numocardiogram

sorry I've been slow to update, I'm having computer issues grrrrr.  my computer network card isn't working so I can't sign on, and on dh's computer AO-hell isn't working so I have to sign on to ao-hell.com grrrrrr. 

Anyway, as of last night she is 5 lbs 14 oz, over 2 x her original body weight of 2 lbs 14 oz.  she's getting sooooo big!!  they started the numocardiogram study today (I hope I spelled that right) and she is not too happy about it.  she has to lay flat on her back, not sitting up at all, and I can't hold her at all until it is done.  it's a 24 hour test and it won't be done until 2:30pm tomorrow (tuesday).  It is the size of the feeding tube but a little stiffer, and put down into her chest thru her nose.  she's showing signs of reflux now that she's flat on her back, coughing and gagging a bit sometimes, but the test will tell us for sure.  If it is reflux causing the heartrate drops, that is good b/c it is easily fixed with meds.  We probably won't know until Wednesday though.  for feeding today they are just sitting her up in her crib and burping her sitting up, since they can't move her,and they also have to write down exactly what time they start and finish so that if they notice any abnormalities when they download the results from the machine they can compare times.  They won't weigh her tonight either b/c they can't take the stuff off her.  She will probably gain a good amount of weight since she isn't getting moved around much. 

They mentioned the carseat study yesterday which isa great sign since that is pretty much the last thing they do before sending her home.  they said they were looking to do that this week, after the numocardiogram.  Yayyyyyy!!!!

holding her head up

we went up last night for her 9 pm feeding, she took most of it but a couple cc's short of her goal.  she took all of her other feedings though.  She gained almost an ounce and is now 5 lbs 11.3 oz.  Last night while I was burping her she kept lifting her head off my shoulder to look around, just like a normal 6-7 week old baby would do!!  it was so cute. 

Friday, 36 weeks

Meghan is now 36 weeks gestational age.  She'll be 7 weeks old on Sunday.  Sh's been doing good on her feedings except her midnight one last night, she kept having heartrate drops and ended up only taking 40 cc's.  She also lost weight last night, 4 grams whichisn't a lot, but still.  however, the nurse said Meghan had a big poop just before herweigh in so that may have contributed to the weight loss :-) 

They are going to do that study on her, starting on Monday.  The good news is that after she does the study they don't make her wait the 7 days, they will just send her home on a monitor if needed or medication depending on the results.  So, hopefully that means she will be home next week.  My baby brother was sent home on a monitor, and I was 14 at the time so I remember it pretty well.  it's kind of a pain to drag around, but at least it will offer us peace of mind.  I'll probably sleep better without feeling the need to wake up and look at her every few minutes to make sure she's OK.  But we'll have to wait for the results. 

Thursday

She had her first full 2 oz bottle today.  She's been hungry today, her feeding this morning she sucked down in 14 minutes which is about half the time it normally takes her.  She was awake the whole time we were there, and even smiled at her daddy.  Mostly she just stared at us, it was really cute.  She's 5 lbs 10.5 oz now, growing like a weed.  She gains on average about an ounce and a third each night, which is great.  Talked to the nurse practitioner again and she is looking at the beginning of next week, she said the 18th is the earliest but they may want to keep her another couple days.  That's IF she doesn't have any heartrate drops.  If they do the study most likely the result will be that she is just immature, and they will probably send her home on a monitor and maybe will put her back on caffiene but probably won't have to do that since her episodes are only once every 6 or 7 days.  She's not even having them much during feedings anymore, sometimes only once every couple days which is great, and it is usually b/c she forgets to swallow.  They said the test will show if it is reflux, which I doubt it is but even if it is that's just medication that they give her.  So, time will tell, right now we have no idea when she will be home which is frustrating.  I am a planner, I like to know well ahead of time what is going on, not be hanging in limbo wondering if I can go to a movie on Tuesday or if I will have my baby home.  :::::::sigh:::::::  She's 36 weeks tomorrow, and will be 7 weeks old on Sunday.

she smiled at me!

OK, now I am sure her smiles are real.  Not just gas, although she has plenty of that.  Today I picked her up and was talking to her, and she opened her eyes and looked right at me then grinned.  I was so happy!!!  She loves her momma!

She is still without the feeding tube.  She had 2 feedings yesterday that she didn't meet her goal of 50 cc's, she only took 40 those two times, but she still gained over an ounce so they are still happy.  Plan is still if she doesn't have any more heartrate drops she will come home on the 17th or 18th, around there.  If she does have more, they will do that study with the tube in her chest.  I'm saying major prayers that they don't have to do that. 

Tuesday update

OK, lets see, what's new?  She's still at 50-55 cc's, although today she's been real sleepy and hasn't been taking it all, one feeding she only did 40.  They still did not put the tube back in though, they decided to wait and see how she does overnight.  I'm praying they don't have to put that nasty tube back in.  She had that heartrate drop on the 8th or 9th, and she had one on the 10th during a feeding which they normally don't count but I guess they had to stimulate her a little so they may or may not count it.  So, if she doesn't have any more she may be coming home end of this week, beginning of the next.  If she does have another drop, they will probably do a test on her where they place a tube down into her chest thru her nose for 24 hours and it records all kinds of different things to determine what is causing the drops, most likely it is just immaturity but they want to make sure it isn't reflux or something else.  So right now it is a waiting game.  She's still gaining, a little under an ounce last night and she hasn't been weighed tonight yet.  Her nurse today, Ed, said "by the way your daughter has a very special talent." and I thought for a moment and said "she's stinky?" and he laughed so hard and said "YES!!!  That child can curl your nose hairs!!"  LOL.  She is a gassy baby.  Makes her 15 year old uncle proud.  :-D  It doesn't bother her at all, she just grunts and lets it go.  Stinks up her whole corner of the unit though!

update and photos

OK, daily update time.  She's up to 55 cc's, only 5 cc's less than 2 oz, at feeding time.  She's been taking all her bottles, has had the feeding tube out for 24 hours (she pulled it out herself last night and they left it out b/c she had been taking all her feedings) and is up to 5 lbs 6.9 oz.  She only gained like a quarter of an ounce yesterday, but the day before she gained 2.5 oz and today she gained over an ounce so they're still happy.  We vistited her this afternoon and she slept the whole time (we weren't there during a feeding) but she was so sweet.  Some of these photos are from that, I'll explain the photos in a minute.  She also only has little dips during feeding and they are getting better.  She hasn't been having heartrate drops during feeding, only saturation drops and they are getting much better, she's only having one or maybe 2 during feedings and they only usually go to the low 80's and come right back up quickly on her own.  When I feed her I watch her face instead of the monitor (since the monitors aren't coming home) and can tell by the color in her face when she's dropping a bit, I take the bottle out of her mouth and sit her up a little more and she pulls right out of it.  She just forgets to breathe a little sometimes, or she will suck too hard and get too much milk.  All in all she's doing great though!

OK, photos.  #1. I'm feeding her, #2. that's me, I look terrible so don't pay attention to me, just look at the cute baby LOL.  #3.  I have proof she is smiling #4. holding daddy's hand.

She's 6 weeks old today.  I wish I could say the time has flown by, but it hasn't.  It will when she's home.

forgot to mention

Meghan actually outgrew something already!  She has a tiny pink sleeper that was the only thing that actually fit her, (thanks again, Tara!!!) and I went to put it on her last night and it was too tight!!  She did get to wear it several times, and I'm going to do some sort of shadow box with it to show just how small she was.  She's getting so big!

Fri night/ Sat morning

Last night I went up for her 9 pm feeding with my parents.  She took the whole thing for me, then proceeded to fill her drawers.  STINKY baby!  LOL.  They also weighed her, she gained over 2 oz and was now 5 lbs 5.2 oz, which is great since the couple days before she hadn't gained very much.  This morning I went up for her noon feeding and she took it all again for me.  The nurse (a Chinese lady who I like a lot, I hope she gets her as a nurse often.  She's had her 2 times so far) said that she had to tube feed 15 cc's from the 9 am feeding b/c Meghan wasn't cooperating, but that all the feedings between last night and then she took the whole things.  So, she's doing good.  :-)  Oh, she didn't have any real big desaturations for me, just minor ones, and no heartrate drops while eating. 

big bummer

I went up today and got to talk to the nurse practitioner.  I asked her if what the doc said was true, if Meghan would be coming home tomorrow, and she was like "Oh, sometimes the doc gets overexcited."  She said that first of all, the tube was still in so that's a definate no, plus Meghan had a heartrate drop apparently on like the 7th or 8th (she said yesterday,w hich was the 8th, but she said it was the 7th so I'm not sure which day).  So, Meghan has another week from then.  Damn it.  She has one like every 6 days, and they start the count over. 

The NP said she would also be moving from fortified breastmilk (they put powdered formula in it) to 6 feedings per day of breastmilk and 2 per day of formula before she comes home, and that we will be continuing that when she comes home for a little while.  She is still gaining weight, but she's slowing down and is only gaining about half an ounce a day, she's up to 5 lbs 2.8 oz as of last night.  She's taking most of her feedings, sometimes they have to put the last 10 cc's in the feeding tube but most of the time she takes the whole thing.

::::::::::::::sigh::::::::::::  it has been 41 very very very long days.

nurses

Spoke to the nurse tonight to see how she was doing and she said "welllllll, she's doing OK.  She's had a few sat drops and heartrate dips. . . " [all of this said as if Meghan was doing not so great, had me worried] then she went on to say "but they've all been during feeding times."  DUH.  The doctor said that's totally normal and not a big deal, that she sometimes sucks too hard on the bottle or gets too much in her mouth and forgets to breathe, and it is easy to tell if that is happening even without looking at the monitors.  It is so normal that they don't even count those against her, and if that is the only time she does it then they will still send her home.  Then she said she had to gave feed the last 10 cc's (out of 50) b/c Meghan had a couple of those episodes.  That's another difference from hospital vs. home, when she is home we can let her rest and try the rest of the food in an hour.

The nurses sometimes bug me.  Her nurse during the day today was great.  She encouraged us to keep trying with her feeding at noon even though she had an "episode" and she ended up taking the rest of the bottle.  However, she gets a lot of nurses who can't get past her age and just assume she's too little and don't hardly try.  That bugs me.  Luckily it is the doc who makes the decision to send her home, not the nurses.  What they don't seem to get is that she is on her own schedule, not the "normal for her gestational age" schedule.  She's been ahead of everything so far.  Even feeding, she's doing much better than most babies her age.  The little boy next to us was born 2 days before her, also at 29 weeks, and he only takes about half his feedings, still has to gavage quite a bit.  She takes pretty much all her feedings, especially when she has a nurse who is willing to try harder.  Once she comes home, we can let her rest in between, but they have her on this strict 3 hour schedule.  Maybe what the doc said today will happen, maybe she will come home this weekend, and we can feed her according to her needs and her schedule. 

move went well, feeding tube back

Her move went great, the only time she fussed was when she got there b/c she was hungry (her feeding time was while they were moving her, so they had to postpone it 45 min.).  I like the new place, it's much smaller although a bit cramped, but it is sooooo much closer.  we timed it last night, it takes about 15 minutes to get home from there.  There's only 6 babies there, so she gets lots of attention.  :-) 

Only one unpleasant surprise, her feeding tube was back in last night.  She only took half her noon feeding and I guess did the same thing at the next one so they had to reinsert it.  Unlike at home, they have her on a 3 hour schedule so if she doesn't finish they can't exactly just re-try in an hour.  However, now that the tube is back in she's taking her feedings well again.  @@.  Brat.  LOL.  We fed her the 9 pm feeding last night and her noon feeding today and she took both full ones.  I may go back up for her 9 pm I don't know.  We'll see how things go tonight.  I do like having her so close though!

Apparent;y the pedi mentioned to the nurse today that she may go home on the 10th.  I don't know how that's possible since she still has the tube in and that's only 2 days away, but we'll see!

getting moved

Just got a call, they are moving her to the other hospital.  I guess that means she still has several more days, :-(  but at least she will be a lot closer.  It is a much smaller unit too, only 8 beds so basically the size of one bay at the other hospital, where there were 6 bays.  They are a level 2 nursery, not a NICU, so they don't care for the really sick babies or babies on ventilators etc.  They do care for babies like Meghan, or ones that need nasal cannulas or feeding tubes, but nothing major.  I guess this is a good thing, it means she's graduating, but instead of graduating home she has to go to another nursery.  One more step.

Their hours are pretty much the same, closed from 6-8 am and pm and from 2:30-3:30 pm, sometimes from 10-11 at night too.  Visitor rules are the same, and they still do scrub in and everything.  The parking is free, and it is only 15-20 minutes from our house.  Its a good thing. 

good news either way

Today while I was visiting Meghan, a nurse came over to talk to the mom next to me about moving her baby to the other branch, which is about halfway between my house and the hospital.  She said it's NICU is great for babies who are close to going home but are still small or needing help learning to eat etc.  She explained that they move the babies when the NICU she is in now is getting full, which it is at the moment.  They move them in a specially equiped ambulance, with the NICU nurses.  When she was done, I said to her "if you're looking for babies to move, feel free to move mine.  It's a LOT closer to my house."  so she said "Thanks!  I'll talk to her doctor."  I spoke with him before I left and he said that he would look over her chart.  If it looks like she only has a few more days he said it wouldn't be worth moving her, but if it looked like it was going to be close to a week or so, he sait it might work better to move her.  So, either way it's good news.  If he says no, then that means she will be home soon.  If he says yes, at least she will be a lot closer plus they have free parking so I won't have to pay every time I visit her.  Maybe their hours will be better too and I'll be able to spend more time with her.

She only took about half her feeding for me at noon, but the one at 9 am she apparently sucked the whole thing down in 10 minutes, so it all just depends on her.  She got a couple big mouthfulls while I was feeding her and choked on it a bit, which made her sats drop.  I think that wore her out and that's why she didn't take more.  The first 15 cc's she gulped down pretty quickly, she was hungry. 

She's smiling a lot more, I don't know if it is still involentary or not.  Brendan smiled for real the first time at 5 weeks.  She's 5.5 weeks old now, and I know preemies are slow at developmental steps but I don't know if they are always slow on everything or not.  For now I'm going to pretend that she was smiling at her momma.  :-)

no feeding tube, but still waiting

She had a great nurse today.  Debbie Rae, a woman as southern as her name.  She said "I took that tube out, she's doin' too well on her feeds to need that thang.  I don't know why they put it back in anyhow, the protocol says not to unless they're losin' weight which she ain't doin'.  We're supposed ta just undress em or whatever we need to do to keep 'em awake to eat.  So I'm just gonna make sure she stays awake ta eat today."  Great nurse :-)  She did great on her feedings today too.  I went up at noon and met with a lactation consultant to discuss how to move her from bottle to breast. She said to nurse her first, and then if she still acts hungry to give her a bottle, and to feed her as often as she wants.  If she wants to eat every hour or two, let her.  And just make sure she's having plenty of wet and dirty diapers, that is a good indicator of if she's getting enough milk.  So I nursed her at noon, she latched great one one side but not on the other, then she was acting hungry still so i gave her a bottle and she took 20 cc's. 

I was really geeked, and thought she was coming home maybe in a couple days.  Well, I called tonight to check on her and asked the nurse when she thought meghan would be coming home and she said that meghan had a heartrate drop on the3rd, so it will be at least 7 days after that.  My heart sunk.  I didn't know that she had one then.  the nurse had mentioned it but said that since it was right after a feed she didn't think it would count against her (drops during feeds don't count against them) but apparently it did.  I am so bummed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm trying not to be imptient, and my little brother even said "it's better for her to be in the hospital now, you wouldn't want to bring her home and have her get sick, would you?" but I'm still really upset.  This has been the longest 5 1/2 weeks of my life. 

small disapointment

Yesterday I took my mom out for her very belated Mother's Day afternoon.  Meghan's Godmother, Debra, joined us and the 3 of us got pedicures, visited meghan and went to see a chick flick.   When we visited Meghan I got a pleasant surprise, they had removed her feeding tube!  The nurse said she had been taking all of her feedings over hte last day and a half except one, so they removed it.  this was at 3:30.  However, she said she had a little trouble with her noon feeding but not her 3 pm feeding so they were going to keep an eye on her.

Then last night I called and she said that they had put her tube back in for her 6 pm feeding b/c she only bottle fed half of it, and then of course Meghan pulled it out again.  the nurse said she was going to keep it out and see if she could bottle feed the rest of the feedings.  well, we got there today and the tube was back in.  I'm really disapointed, I was really hoping that she could bottle feed the rest of them.  The nurse today said that usually when the baby feeds for 24 hours they take the tube out, then after another 24 horus if everything else is good they send them home.  She also said that they won't give us much notice, just lilke a day or two.  So, we have her carseat, which we are bringing up to the hospital tomorrow for her carseat study (they make sure that she doesn't have any apnea or heartrate drops in her carseat, basically they sit her in it for an hour with her monitors on), I have an appointment with a lactation consultant to discuss the best way to move her from mainly bottle feeding to mainly breastfeeding on tuesday, and we have a note on her chart to talk to the doc and set up an appointment for rooming in.  We are ready.  We want her home.  One more step and she will be ready.  All she needs to do is eat all her feedings from a bottle.  Come on Meghan, you can do it!!!!!

post partum depression, meghan update

I just called her nurse, so I have an up to the minute report.  She's doing great, taking more and more feedings.  She took her 9 am, noon (I gave it to her) and 3 pm bottles, I'm assuming the whole thing b/c the nurse didn't mention how many cc's, and then she rested for her 6 pm and took her 9 pm in a bottle.  She's 4 lbs 11.9 oz as of last night, up to 46 cc's each feeding and doing great.  She's on day 5 of no heartrate drops, and has to go 7 days efore being allowed home.  Also has to take her bottles for 48 hours straight, no gavage feeding. 

they moved her to the "big kid's bay" as I like to call it, she's in the bay with all the babies that are ready to go home.  Not sure if I like that or not, because as I was there today 3 babies went home, one was going home this afternoon, and one was told she could take her baby home tuesday.  I WANT TO TAKE MY BABY HOME!  LOL.  I was very jealous, but I know it will happen soon.  My patience is wearing thin though.  I am encouraged by how many bottles she's taking though, she's improving constantly!

she also got a shot while I was there, her last iron shot.  the nurse asked me if I wanted to leave, but I said it was OK, I can handle it.  I wanted to be there to comfort her afterward, but she didn't need comforting.  She only cried for like 15 seconds.  By the time the nurse had disposed of the syringe and put a bandaid on her, she was fine!  even the nurse asked her "Is that all??"  LOL.  She's a very easy baby!  After that I got to feed her and hold her for quite a while, more quality time with her than I've been able to get in a while.  I think I held her for almost 2 hours today, it was so nice.  then I got to spend some quality time with Brendan this afternoon, he has a new game where he comes up to me and says "HI!" and I say HI back, and he cracks up and does it again.  LOL.  no idea why he thinks it is funny, but that's OK.

I went to my doc today to talk about postpartum depression before I visited Meghan.  He and I talked a lot about my symptoms, a lot of crying jags and mood swings and anger etc, and he asked if the stress in my life was causing it or if it the reactions were excessive compared to the stress.  I told him that I'm sure the stress is a factor, but that I normally am better than this at handling stress, and since I had a touchof ppd  with my son my doc put me on prozac.  He said there is some research that some antidepressants can have a negative effect on neurological development in nursing babies, causing them to be slightly developmentally delayed, but that prozac seems to have one of the least effects of the different antidepressants used.  he also said that most pediatricians agree that of 3 options, a medicated mom nursing, a medicated mom not nursing, and a non medicated mom nursing, that they prefer a medicated mom nursing.  he said the benefits of nursing outweigh the risks with this med, and that having me medicated and feeling better is better for her.  he said "If momma ain't happy, no one's happy!"  LOL.  I like my doc, he's very down to earth.  He wants me to come back in 3 weeks, and Meghan should be home by then, God willing, so I'll get to show her off.  :-)

 

photo and update

Here's a photo of when our Priest came to visit on Memorial day.  Isn't she getting big??  She gained again last night, but not as much as the night before, which is fine b/c the night before she gained like 3 oz LOL.  She also took her whole midnight feeding from a bottle, but then hasn't bottle fed since.  I'm going in for her noon feeding so maybe she will then. 

I have a doc apt just before I go to see her, I'm going to talk to my doc about postpartum depression.  I had a mild case of it with Brendan and I'm showing signs of it again, so I'm trying to be on top of things and get it taken care of quickly.

close to coming home!

According to both her doc and her nurse, Meghan is very close to coming home if she can just get the hang of eating.  the doc said "maybe another week or two, but I doubt it will be that long."  She has to go 7 days without any heartrate drops and she is already on day 4.  She also has to eat every feeding from  a bottle and continue to gain weight while doing so.  the weight thing shouldn't be an issue, little miss piggy gained 3 oz last night to bring her up to 4 lbs, 10.6 oz.  She's getting chunky!!  Its so cute, she is a little chubby baby now with rolls on her legs and a double chin and little jowls.  Over the last couple days she has taken 3 or 4 full bottles and several half bottles.  Today at noon we fed her a little over half of one, so she is getting there hopefully.  they said if she gets the hang of it in the next few days, she could come home early next week!  She has to nipple every feeding for 48 hours. 

:::::::::::::::fingers crossed::::::::::::::::::::  I liked her nurse today, she's interested in getting Meghan to eat, rather than just saying "oh, she's asleep, we'll just gavage feed her", and she showed us ways to wake her up to eat and to keep her awake, which will help when we come home too.  I hope she has this nurse again.