I needed that

Hope had a good day today. We really needed it. I got to do kangaroo care for an hour after I got there. She was awake and kept grinning at me. A couple of times she did these big, scrunch-up-her-whole-face smiles. I loved it! It was so good to see her feeling better. She was much more alert and active than she has been these past few days. She was really enjoying her binky too. I got a kick out of the way she was holding onto it. But this afternoon she got down right feisty. She kept pulling out her cannula and she would get pretty upset whenever a nurse would come fix it. (By the way, her oxygen saturation stayed in the 90s even when it was out.) Then she was screaming and flailing while I tried to take her temperature. (When I say screaming- it looked much worse than it sounded.) She was tired of people messing with her and she was letting us know. I can't say I blame her - I'd be mad too.

Other things are looking better today too. There wasn't any blood in her stool today. There is always blood there because the stoma bleeds when it is touched, but that is normal and they say she doesn't feel it. The area between the two ends of the bowel which are sticking out is having to be addressed. The skin has come apart, so they are irrigating it and packing it every 3 hours. But again they say this isn't uncommon and it looks fine. I'll take their word for it, because it looks pretty gross to me. But her lungs seem to be doing good. They've weaned her down further on her high-flow nasal cannula, so I'm hoping she gets off of it soon. Oh, and I found out that the nurse re-weighed Hope last night because I was so upset. Turns out, she was really 3 lbs 6.5 oz. She still lost, but that sounded much better to me.

The only hitch in our day was that Hope got a new roommate. Let's just call her "the Screamer." She's a very cute baby with a mop of black hair and big, wide eyes. And she seems to be very content - so long as she's being held. The nurses all just look kind of weary when they have to take care of her. I should have suspected something was up when this baby moved in with her own swing, bouncy seat, and stroller. Apparently they try everything to calm her down. This new arrangement might be interesting.