Day of Rest

Today is my last day at the hospital!!! I am allowed to stay here until 10pm tonight since Eloise down in the NICU. I do not plan to stay that long but probably until dinner. I am going to spend the day visiting Elie, resting and pumping. Trey is at home spending the day with Cecelia and they will both come up to bring me home.

I went down for rounds this morning at 9am to see how Elie did over the night. I was very excited to see that she was out of her oxygen hood when I got there. The doctor and NP came around and gave report while I was there. They reported that Elie is doing great. Her oxygen level is staying at 99-100% without the hood. She is still doing a little seesawing with her breathing but not as bad as she was. Seesawing is when movement of the chest and stomach (abdomen) in the opposite direction with every breath. They are going to hold off on trying to feed her until tomorrow to give her a day of rest and work some more on her breathing. She is down to 1690 grams (3lbs 11.6ozs) from her birth weight of 1775 grams (3lbs 14.6ozs). She has had her first bowel movements and continues to have good wet diapers. Her bilirubin numbers are up from 4 to 6.9 which is expected for a preterm baby. She will most likely go under a light for jaundice and may even still be a little jaundice when she comes home but this is completely normal and nothing to be concerned about. Even full term babies have jaundice. She is on no medicines and only has an IV that has been placed in her umbilical artery(UA) to give her nutrients until she starts to feed. They had to place the IV in her UA because her veins are so small they were having too much trouble getting an IV in them. This makes it easier and then they don't have to keep poking her. The UA also gives them an accurate blood pressure reading. The UA does restrict our ability to hold her because they can't risk the line coming out which would cause a large blood loss. She has a few monitors on her that check her body temperature, heart rate and oxygen levels. She really is doing great and holding her own. After we leave the hospital we are able to call the NICU and get updates on her at any time and have the option to come visit her at any time day or night.

I am excited to be able to go home, sleep in my own bed and spend time with Cecelia but I am sad that I will not be able to just go down and see Eloise whenever I want. I feel very comfortable that Eloise is in great hands and being well taken care of. We have no idea when she will be able to come home and do not want to rush the process. We want her to be as healthy as she can get before she leaves the great environment that she is in. So for now we will just come visit her as much as possible.