One Step Forward, One Step Back

 

My baby is becoming a teenager. She sleeps until noon and doesn’t answer me when I ask her questions. She has a mild case of baby acne. I told her to cut back on the pizza!

Fiona is over six weeks old. She weighs five pounds eleven ounces (2.585 kg). Her feeding tube was removed yesterday and she’s been taking all of her feedings orally. In fact, she is now eating ad lib. The nurses will only feed her when she wakes up and indicates that she is hungry. They will let her eat as much or as little as she wants, just like we would at home. They won’t let her go more than four hours without eating.

This is great news. It’s almost the last step before going home.

Almost.

In order to go home, Fiona must demonstrate three things:

1) She can control her own body temperature – check

2) She can eat on her own without losing weight – sort of check

3) No apneas or bradycardias in seven days – FAIL!

Yesterday afternoon she had a bradycardia that was not self resolving. That means she had to be stimulated and bought herself seven more days in the NICU.

Here’s hoping she figures out that breathing and heart rate thing soon.

Here are pictures from today’s afternoon visit:

   

She also squirted milk from her nose today.