already 5 pounds!!...Our little preemie princess is growing up so fast! She is 11 weeks today! (37 weeks and 5 days gestation) and has finally hit the 5 pound mark! She's actually 5.4 pounds hoping for 5.5 tonight!)
Olivia is still enjoying her time in the blue room in the NICU but I think she really wants to get to that green room ASAP so she can come home! She's working hard at it. She's been doing a lot of successful bottle feeds and breastfeeds and working on getting her oxygen levels down. She's sitting between 40-60% right now on lo-flow which is next to nothing. Occasionally she's sits at 20%.
This past week and a bit Olivia has had a few visitors drop by to see her. Jane, Grandma Marcy, Grandpa Don, Sue (one of Jeff's co-workers) as well as one of my students, Joshua. It's always so nice to have visitors on a long day in the NICU. Give's me a bit of a break from just listening to the monitors. Pretty soon it'll be so nice to have visitors in my own home and be able to pick Olivia up without working with the barriers of tubes and monitors. I still spend most of my days by Olivia's bed side doing her care. She's up to 5 bottle feeds/breastfeeds a day. She has to work her way up to 8 but she'll do it! She's already gone from 0-3 a day in 1.5 weeks! Though I'm dreading the sleeplessness when she comes home it'll be so worth it! Be so nice not to get up, get ready and drive 15 minutes just to see her. I can do it all in one place it'll be so much easier! All in my PJ's too! Jeff and I actually just re-arranged our bedroom to accommodate her new cute owl bassinet! Everything is all set now for her...all we need now is a baby! Here is our room all set up!
Olivia is still enjoying her time in the blue room in the NICU but I think she really wants to get to that green room ASAP so she can come home! She's working hard at it. She's been doing a lot of successful bottle feeds and breastfeeds and working on getting her oxygen levels down. She's sitting between 40-60% right now on lo-flow which is next to nothing. Occasionally she's sits at 20%.
This past week and a bit Olivia has had a few visitors drop by to see her. Jane, Grandma Marcy, Grandpa Don, Sue (one of Jeff's co-workers) as well as one of my students, Joshua. It's always so nice to have visitors on a long day in the NICU. Give's me a bit of a break from just listening to the monitors. Pretty soon it'll be so nice to have visitors in my own home and be able to pick Olivia up without working with the barriers of tubes and monitors. I still spend most of my days by Olivia's bed side doing her care. She's up to 5 bottle feeds/breastfeeds a day. She has to work her way up to 8 but she'll do it! She's already gone from 0-3 a day in 1.5 weeks! Though I'm dreading the sleeplessness when she comes home it'll be so worth it! Be so nice not to get up, get ready and drive 15 minutes just to see her. I can do it all in one place it'll be so much easier! All in my PJ's too! Jeff and I actually just re-arranged our bedroom to accommodate her new cute owl bassinet! Everything is all set now for her...all we need now is a baby! Here is our room all set up!
Let's see, what else is new? Oh, She's now off her feeding pump and doing exclusively breastfeeding, bottle feeding and gravity feeding (you hold the syringe up and let the milk go down by gravity instead of by pump. It's a lot faster). She's doing well so far! There are 8 levels she has to pass and so far she's on level 5! (5 meals by bottle or breast per day). Here she is getting a gravity fed for the first time! Now mother and babe can both gravity feed together:)
Oh, I should mention before I forget, last Monday was World Prematurity Day! People around the world celebrate those who were born premature. It's a huge event! The hospital was all lit up in purple (That's the color they use), there was a big lunch put on by NICU veterans at Janeece Place (which I didn't get around too since I was busy feeding Olivia), and an information booth down in the lobby about preemies. Here is Olivia celebrating Preemie Day! (She got a gift bag from the NICU)
Olivia had her 2 months shots this week. Because she is a preemie they do the shots over the course of 2 or 3 days (she had them over 3 days) since its so hard on their little body. She actually had to go back on optiflow for a couple of days as she was desaturating a lot and shallow breathing. This is a totally typical reaction for a preemie so I was well aware of it. She was a trooper getting her shots! She was upset but didn't put up too much of a fit. They gave her sugar for the pain..she enjoyed sucking on it lol. I told Olivia that that was the last time she'll have sugar for a long time! Won't hurt her at the moment as she doesn't have any teeth anyways:) She should be back on lo-flo tomorrow and back on track to going home soon, finger's crossed!!
Before I sign off here I thought Id share this really cool photo. Here's Olivia' growth for you all:) You can see how much she's grown with the help of my Kangaroo Care which I do every day with her! It really is the best medicine! I believe it now!
Before I sign off here I thought Id share this really cool photo. Here's Olivia' growth for you all:) You can see how much she's grown with the help of my Kangaroo Care which I do every day with her! It really is the best medicine! I believe it now!
Hope you're all doing well! Sorry for the huge delay in blog! I'll try harder:)
-Monique
-Monique