Happy New Year

January 02, 2010

Happy New Year

It has been a crazy but good weekend which is why there was a delay in posts. We brought in the New Year with some friends at our house. On New Years Day Trey went up to get Eloise's report in the morning and then I went up in the afternoon to visit. After Cecelia's nap my family came over to do Christmas since I was in the hospital on Christmas Day. My parents took Cecelia home with them after the party so Trey and I could both go up to the hospital to be with Eloise. It had been awhile since we were both able to go up together. In the morning we both went up again and visited. We picked Cecelia up from my parents and then after her nap we took her to her first movie. We saw the Princess and the Frog at Celebration Cinema North. She did so good. She sat on my lap and ate popcorn just like an adult. The movie started at 6:10 and she made it to 7:40 at which she got a little anxious and we left. The movie was 90 minutes long but due to advertisements at the beginning we didn't make it quite to the end but very close. When we got home from the movies I went back up to the hospital to be with Elie for the night. Sunday we went to church and then brought Cecelia up to the hospital to see Eloise. My brother and his Fiancée Lisa, yes I said Fiancée. They got engaged over the holidays and will be getting married sometime next fall. We are very excited for them. Came up to the hospital to see Eloise for the first time and hold her. Later on Sunday we had the whole family over for Cecelia's birthday party since I was again in the hospital for her birthday. It was a very fun night and Cecelia definitely spoiled. So that brings us to today. Trey went up to the hospital to get the report this morning and she is doing very good. She has been gaining about a ounce or more a day and is now at 4lbs. Which is more than her birth weight. She was having some trouble eating this weekend as she was getting tired which they say is very normal for preemies and especially small babies. They did put a tube down her nose to her stomach to be able to feed her when she tired out. On Saturday they were doing every other feeding of just tube feeding her and nipple feeding to allow her to gaining some strength back. On Sunday they switched it to 2 nipple feeds and then one tube feed and this morning they put her on nurse discretion since she was doing much better with her feeding and taking them herself. She only has 30 minutes to take a feeding of which they are giving her 38 cc's (cc's are the same as ml, and 30 cc's is 1 ounce). The reason for only 30 minutes is because when she takes longer than that she is using more energy (burning calories) than she is taking in which would result in weight loss. They did have some concern over her blood work this past weekend but with repeat labs it shows no problems this morning. She also had an ultrasound done last night to check on the cyst we saw before she was born. The doctors have not yet read the scans but the Nurse Practitioner who was there during the ultrasound said the tech did not see any cysts during the procedure. This is great news and what was expected. The doctors had figured it was just an ovarian cyst that would resolve itself after she was born. These type of cysts are usually due to the mothers hormones and they dissolve once they are born since they do not have the extra hormones from the mom anymore. She is still on caffeine and has only a few episodes a day mostly with feedings. This is very normal since they have a hard time coordinating sucking and swallowing but she always resolves them herself. They had talked about taking her off the caffeine but with her still having some episodes they are leaving her on it. The caffeine does not prevent her from going home it just means she would be on a monitor when she came home. So in all she is doing very well and progressing in the right direction. We still do not have any idea when she will be home but we are thinking it will at least not be until next week or so.

Here are some recent pictures.