28 Days

I realize that I haven't updated for a while. As I read my last update, today's update isn't much different. Curly Q's progress is so slow that I now feel what other NICU parents say - how you begin to feel like your baby is never going to come home. Curly Q still needs oxygen. She's wearing her 'elephant nose' mask. Every time they try to wean her oxygen level, she doesn't do very well, so they've had to maintain her level. The Doc can't seem to find an explanation as to why - other than she's premature and there was limited amniotic fluid for the last 7 weeks of my pregnancy. Her chest x-rays look great. They checked her heart twice for possible reasons - but both times it came back normal. They put her on a medication for a week, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Their new plan is to consult an ENT (ear, nose, throat) specialist to check Curly Q's airway to see if it is collapsing when she's trying to breathe. I hope they can find the solution or Curly Q can just grow out of it.

She's putting on weight very nicely. Her cheeks look a little chubby and it is starting to look like she's developing a double chin. I believe she's 4 lbs 10 oz now. (They weigh her twice a day, but they weigh her in grams. I'm not always that great at converting it to pounds.) She's being fed 42 mL of milk every 3 hours. I can tell when she's hungry, she has started sticking her tongue out a little, like she wants to suck. And when you stick a pacifier in her mouth, she sucks really well at it. I think she's ready to start nursing and getting rid of the feeding tube, but she needs to breathe better before they will even start. I've heard that the eating part and putting on weight takes the longest, which is a little discouraging because it's taking so long for her to get her breathing down.

We make it over to the hospital every day, in the evenings during the week. And on the weekends - I make it over there twice a day. I get to help change her diaper, check her temperature, change her clothes. We've even gotten to help give her a bath. She loves it. I'm pretty sure it took Little Miss a couple months to get used to bath time, but Curly Q loves it. She just sits there all relax, with her eyes wide open, just looking around. It's fun to watch her.

Overall, we're so grateful that she is so healthy. Things could have gone tragically wrong. We just need to keep patiently waiting and praying.