Dealing with NICU stuff is much harder than dealing with inpatient stuff. My emotions are too close to the surface. I tear up over nothing...and sometimes feel nothing when I could be crying.
Angel:
All good news :) Angel is in the step-down nursery. (Not ready for normal nursery but doesn't need intensive care either.)
1. Food.
They're upping her caloric intake based on her weight and expenditures. She has a feeding tube (through her nose and down into her stomach). They only use the feeding tube for every other feeding. Otherwise I nurse her (if I'm there) or a bottle (if I'm not there).
2. Breathing
She's been breathing room air on her own from the start. They warned me that 34-weekers often regress on breathing after the first few days. I guess they just get worn out because they're so tiny and eating/breathing/staying warm is too much to do all at once. Angel has never needed any help breathing and they're not worried about it.
3. regulating her own temperature.
Angel is in an incubator (we call it her condo). She stretches out and lounges around all day like she's laying out in the sun. Today her condo was set to 30.0 degrees. Once it's down to 29.0 Degrees they'll switch her to an open crib.
Angel just needs to keep gaining weight. I expect she'll be able to come home when she's 2 weeks old.
Seraph -
1. food
Because she'll most likely need heart surgery soon, Seraph is fed through IV's instead of real food. She seems to be a natural nurser--she roots and sucks and loves her binky. She's always trying to get more of her binky into her mouth :)
2. breathing
on day 5, they finally put Seraph on a liter of oxygen. She just has the tiny nose tube - like I had when I was doing an NST that said my oxygen was low. Her lungs are working extra hard because of a heart problem. This was expected - actually we thought it'd happen sooner.
3. regulating her own temperature
Seraph is really good at this. The first 3 days she was just in a crib. She's under a heat lamp now...but that's mostly because she has so many tubes and probes that it's easier for the doctors to heat her air than to keep wrapping and unwrapping the blankets.
4.jaundice
The doctors have Seraph on a bili-blanket as a pre-emptive strike against jaundice. her count wasn't that high, but it seemed to be going up so they started helping her.
5. heart problems
the cardiologist is still watching her closely. At this point when asked if she needs surgery, the answer is "not yet".
3 comments:
Congratulations on your girls.
They sound like they are doing really well.
NICU is really hard. I thought that it was the end of the road for us but instead it was a hard frustrating journey.
I wish you luck and strength.
Sounds like things are going the best that they can. We are still praying for you and your girls and can't wait to meet them in a few weeks. :) Know we are here for you whatever we can do!
I guess it's sort of good but also a little frustrating that they keep putting off the surgery, cuz it's always nice to reach a conclusion of stress. But it does sound like they're doing really well. Happy!
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