It's been about a week and a half since the last post (Happy Post Halloween!). Not a whole lot has gone on other than Olivia has gained a bunch of weight! She's up to 1530 grams! She's growing like a weed! She's down to 4 packs of HMF (Human Milk Fortifier) and they've turned her oxygen flow down to 6 (she was at 8). They're hoping to turn it down again (if she agrees lol) to 4 this week. Finger's crossed that'll happen! In the next couple of weeks she will also be in a big girl bed! (a crib rather than an incubator! how exciting!!). That'll be a huge milestone!
Oh, another thing that happened that's really big for me is that we started practicing breast feeding! She's just at the first stage right now of exploring the idea and so far she's doing great! She gave a few sucks which was amazing and strange for me! This is really happening! Haha! Pretty soon Olivia and I will be masters at this whole process! Before we all know it she'll be running around screaming "Mommy! Daddy!". Okay, lets not get ahead of ourselves, but still, the thought of all this is rather exciting!
Oh, you're all probably wondering about her eyes! We finally tracked the Dr. down to check them again (he only comes into the hospital if he has a procedure so it was hard to get him to come in and check them again!). He came last week and we were told that Olivia has stage 1 ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity). In short, ROP is a disease that occurs in premature babies in which causes abnormal blood flow to the vessels of the eye. Inturn, can cause the retina to detach itself and cause blindness. There are apparently 5 stages of ROP, 1 being the lowest. She is at low risk right now and she will most likely correct the problem herself, i.e., grow out of it without any corrective surgery. (laser eye surgery). The surgery has good outcome but we aren't going to worry about that right now as she probably won't get there:) Her eyes are progressing in the right direction, she's just a bit behind. She will be watched closely. She may end of wearing glasses when she's older but that's okay...glasses are cool, right!:)
Onto other things now, she's 8 weeks today! Hard to believe it was two months she was born! Actually, I was in the OR as I'm typing this 2 months ago! She was born at 5:04pm and it's 4:48pm right now:) It all happened so fast! Here are some photos of our little "Pumpkin" (no pun intended!:) )
I spent all day there today from 9am-4pm and then again from 6-7pm. From 6-7pm I showed Jeff how to do all the routine stuff that she needs every 3 hours. He did a great job:) Hopefully we'll have the hang of it by the time she comes home.
Tonight Jeff's sister popped in to see Olivia. She hadn't seen her in a couple of weeks so she saw a huge difference in her! Here is Jeff and Julia visiting Olivia as well as my well dressed princess:)
Oh, before I forget! Today I had a lovely surprise! I'll make this story as short as possible.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a wanted ad on Varagesale for some more kangaroo shirts so I could donate them to the NICU. A lovely lady, (Kelly) responded to my ad that had two of them! (My mom bought one and I bought one. They're so expensive new so used was great!). Was just telling the Kelly (the lady that donated the shirts) about Olivia and she decided put together a care package for me to make my stay in the NICU better. She's a part of this Tuesday's Mom group and they put together this lovely package for me! It arrived today!
Anyways, I'm sure there's more to post but this post is way overdue so I'm just going to go ahead and hit post! I'll be catching up more tomorrow.
Hope all is going well with all of you readers! Here's a funny picture and a daily question for you all:)