Evening Update (9-25)

Kevin is still fairly sick. We're pretty sure his weekend with Karsie is done. Even if he got better through the night we would want to give it at least a day to let it pass, which brings us to the end of the weekend. He's really bummed.

Karsie, however, is doing great! She is getting just a teensy bit more from the breast every time, so hopefully she will be a good little eater by the time they push her to bolus feeding (3 hours worth taken in 30 min.). She took about 22 mL this morning and 24 mL this evening. She is also getting 2 bottles a day and taking 10-15 each time. She is still spitting up, but she is producing much less volume. They decided to hold off on bumping her feeds up to 1 hour on-two hours off. The reason is not that Karsie isn't handling it, but that they want her to take a break from the daily increases before moving on. We're okay with that decision. We were thinking that she would need a break soon anyway, however we were thinking it wouldn't be until the next increase... but this one's fine.

Finally, there's been some talk about moving her to a different unit in Children's. The current unit she is in is the one in which she started, and it is for very acute babies. The other unit is a little more spacious, quiet, and for babies like Karsie that just need to eat and grow. We hope that if we move we still get our primary nurses, but we are very excited to move if given the opportunity.

Until tomorrow...

Morning Update (9-25)

Unfortunately, Kevin is in bed sick so that may mean a ton of blogging today.  We hope it goes away soon, but if not he will probably go home tomorrow to avoid spreading it around the house. The meetings did him in yesterday.  

Lots of good news to report today.  First of all, Karsie measured heavier yesterday.  She weighed in at 3.205 kilos.  We measured her three times to make sure and that was the lightest but it was the one that read twice.  

Breathing:  This will be our last report on breathing.  She has been off of her nasal cannula for a few days now and handling it just fine.  We of course will update if it gets worse, but we are confident it won't.

Pinky:  Still looks good.  Nothing to report except continual growth of skin.

Feeding:  She has handled the 1.5 on 1.5 off well.  She had two small throwups today (one last night and one this morning) but nothing big.  Michelle didn't stay for rounding, but from what we can tell she will be pushed to 1 hour on 2 hours off.  This is the area we think she will struggle the most, but she has surprised everyone thus far, so maybe it will be a breeze.  She has been taking more from the breast lately (thanks to some accurate latching and help from Reva and our lactation specialist at the hospital).  She took 22 mL this morning in the half hour time.  We're getting there!  Also, she took from the bottle last night.  We're very excited about that because the bottle feeding is the feeding that has the extra calories (that and the ng tube feeding) which helps her get bigger.  She had been barely taking any when we last tried the bottle, so we shelved the bottle for a while and let her take only the breast.  Yesterday she took 10 mL, which is what her average was before she wouldn't have anything to do with it. However, last night she took 15 mL.  We're in the process of experimenting with different equipment (bottles, nipples, etc.) so hopefully there will be a solution soon.  Closer and closer we are to the end.  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!

Random:  The hospital put the final order form in for Karsie's turtle shell (the thing that will protect her in the car seat and such).  We're very interested to see how that turns out.  Also, physical therapy is coming by around noon to do an assessment of her.  They'll check out how she is doing with muscles, neck strength, etc. based on her weight and age.  Lots of stuff happening.