Sweet Pea

Hope is doing great. I have been able to do kangaroo care with her for the past few days. She is getting to be more alert when we visit. I have been getting to help with her care time and am even improving on changing those wee little diapers. (She has moved up a size, though. I think these could probably reach her armpits it you didn't fold them over.) She is now getting shots 3 times per week to stimulate her bone marrow to grow red blood cells so that she won't get anemic and need any more transfusions. She also gets iron to help with anemia and caffeine to stimulate her breathing. A dietician sees her once a week and makes recommendations for which formula should be added to her breastmilk. They try to add in some extra calories and calcium. She also got a bigger nasal canulla today. She's growing. She's also growing lots of hair. You might even say she has fur on her shoulders. Good thing it will be cold weather when we get her home and we can dress her in long sleeves! :) I just got off the phone with her nurse and she gained 50 grams today. She's up to 2 lbs 11 oz. Yay! Thanks again for all your prayers for her.

Could I ask you all to pray for me too? Even though Hope has been doing so well, I am really having a hard time. I have been so worried and anxious about getting sick that I haven't been wanting to visit the NICU. Mike and my mom have been having to make me go in and see my baby. Each time I go I sit and worry that I'm going to come down with something and I will have exposed Hope. Please pray that God will be merciful and keep illness far from our family. Pray that I will feel good and also that I will have peace and be free from these anxious thoughts. I've been hesitant to blog about this, but I feel desperate enough that I'm willing to beg for your prayers on this. Thank you for lifting me up.

Getting bigger

Sorry, I don't have any pictures to post. My mom is up here and all the video and pics are on her camera. I will try to remember my camera tomorrow. I did kangaroo care with Hope again today and it went really well. She is not quite so scary to handle now. She stayed awake for a bit of the time I was holding her and she kept looking up at me. It was very sweet and comforting. We are concerned about her eyesight because these preemies can have a lot of vision problems. So although I can't tell what she is seeing, she definitely seems to be looking. That is reassuring to me. It's fun that she seems to be awake more too. I just called and talked to her nurse tonight and she gained a little more than an ounce today. She is now up to 2 lbs 10 oz. Keep up the good work, Hope!

Weekend pics

Yesterday I got to do kangaroo care with Hope. It felt like holding a baby. She didn't have her head gear and tons of wires hooked up to her. And I wasn't wearing gloves so I was able to feel her soft fuzzy head. Pretty exciting. Today we took the kids to Manito Park for the afternoon. It was lovely but a little on the cold side.

Tonights visit

Hope got her pic line out today. She now has nothing sticking in her. Hooray! I thought they were going to need to leave the line in for medicines, but apparently they can give her everything orally. It's so exciting. She's growing up! She also gained back that 20 grams she lost yesterday. Mike and I will go see her again tomorrow and we'll try to post more pics then. It was just a short visit tonight because it was almost 10 by the time we got there. Hopefully we'll get to spend more time tomorrow.

Minus 20

Well, Hope was down 20 grams tonight, though the nurse said she still checks in at 2 lbs 9 oz. I guess we can't grow by leaps and bounds every day. But everything I hear from the nurses at this point is along the lines of "She's doing great!" and "She's so cute!" This nurse was just finishing up her care time and said that Hope had a cute little smile on her face. Wish I could have seen it. I'm sure this was just a twitch, but I had asked one of the nurses about milestones. I knew that walking and talking and such would be "delayed" if you counted from their birth date, but I had wondered about smiling. This nurse said that smiling was something that they saw earlier with these preemies. She didn't say exactly when, just that it wouldn't be so far behind as other things. Can't wait.

Pudge

Just a quick note to say that Hope gained another 70 grams today. She is now 2 lbs 9 oz. Yay!

Fashionista

Our baby is wearing clothes! And she's more than just skin and bones now. Admittedly not much more, but look at those legs and cheeks. There's a little something there now. And I'd like to point out that she has nothing hooked up to her arms now. She still has 1 IV in her foot, but that's it. She will be up to full feeds withing the next couple of days, which means no more IV fluids. The line can't come out quite yet though since she is still getting hydrocortisone through it. The doctor didn't think she'd be off of that in the next week, but it won't be too long. The opthamologist looked at her yesterday. Her eyes are immature, but they didn't see anything wrong. They will check her again in a couple of weeks. The doctor told me that if they suspected something was wrong they would be checking more often than that. So praise the Lord! She continues to gain weight. And yes, she is 2 lbs 7 oz not 1 lb 7 oz. Ooops! They only weigh her once per day at the 8 pm care time. I'll try to update tonight after her new weight comes in. The only other thing to say is that she has been pooping well without glycerin. Good girl!