Hello everyone. Hope you all are enjoying yourselves. Unfortunately I am home with the start of a little cold and cant be with the baby :( but to pass time here is her update. Since her last update, the baby now weighs a whopping 2 lb 15 oz as of last night and is 15.5 inches long. Its crazy to think she is almost 3 lbs because she doesnt feel nor look it yet. Nurse Tammy let us know that at around 3800 grams is when they are able to switch the babies to a crib. Melanie is at 1325 grams right now. Other exciting news is that Melanie is finally on cpap!!! Cpap stands for continuous positive airway pressure and in short means that the baby still has the cannula on but with no back up rate, just pressure. She is breathing solely on her own and the pressure allows her airways to remain open in case of an apnea spell. Its a huge step in her progress and one step closer to coming home. So far she has adjusted well and requires between 30% and 40% of pressure. Though it seems a little high, on cpap that is completely normal considering she is breathing on her own with no support compared to the help she had received since birth. After all this great news, there are a few things we are still working on. Her feelings still arent going as well as we all had hoped and therefore have had to resort to a few adjustments. Last update I had mentioned that Dr. Bichara had began to infuse breast milk back into her diet every other feeding. Well on the 13th she had worked her up to strait breast milk. When I say strait breast milk I mean 80% is breast milk while the other 20% is formula. The nurses have to fortify the milk with formula so Melanie gets the proper amount of nutrition. Unfortunately when she was on the breast milk she began having huge residuals. Of her 23cc feeding, she was having between 10 and 14 cc residuals which wasnt too good. The next day the dr decided to change the formula from the 24 cal elecare to the 22 cal elecare to help with residuals. To our surprise that didnt work and she began having loose stools. On the 15, the baby was still having high residuals and runny stools so the dr decided to switch her formula to gerber to see if that one would make a difference infused with the formula. What the dr is merely trying to do is trying to get to the bottom of why he residuals are so high and why her stools have changed. Though residuals arent uncommon with feeding premies, considering if they were still in the womb they wouldnt have to be introduced to this stuff until they were born, high residuals could be a sign of her simply not liking milk or it could be internal. We are trying to find a formula that she can stomach before the dr considers a more serious issue. As of the 16th, the dr decided to stop the breast milk and went back to alternating the gerber 22 cal and a premie formula every other feeding, when that wasnt working he stopped the gerber formula and now she is just on 22 cal of the premie formula. With today being the beginning of the week the dr will be ordering some possible tests to see if her residuals and loose stools may be a result of something internal. Although I know this is just a minor bump for Melanie, I cant help but feel sad that I may not get the opportunity to breast feed her :( my production is dwindling and I feel like Im letting my baby down among other things. When she was taking milk again I was actually able to take some bottles for the first time in 7 weeks....I was sooooo excited. Now I am disappointed we may not experience it. I keep hearing how my milk is gold to her and its what is gonna get her out of the nicu so Im still trying to understand how its making her feel yucky. I have hope that its nothing serious and that she just needs more time to develop and get used to it. She will have a follow up eye exam tomorrow and I will speak to the nurse or dr about the next steps for her feedings. Again thank you all for being here for jr and I. I dont mean to be a downer but I hope you all can respect my honesty. There is nothing fun or exciting about being in the nicu and I thought with time this will all get easier. The truth is though that Im finding it never really gets easy you just learn to adapt. Melanie is extremely strong, stronger than anyone I know. For that though I am remaining strong and smiling when a smile is due and crying when a cry is due Im not a religious person, but I know that god wouldnt have put us up to this if he didnt think we could handle it. Again I thank you all for the support you have given us these past 7 and a half weeks ❤️ And I look forwards o providing you with good news soon
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 08:45:37 +0000