Day 145 - Puttin' on the grams

Chloe put on 36 grams yesterday - the first day she was allowed to be a big girl and control her own feeding schedule. 36 grams may not seem like a lot but it's a pretty good amount for Chloe. She gained 8 grams the night before and didn't gain anything for 5 days before that. As it turns out, she's really hungry around dinner time and likes to sleep more at night. I'm sure not complaining! She's now 5lb 10.5oz. As my friend, Bev, says, "Praises!"

I can't wait to visit Chloe during Solana's Pre-K today. She's usually super alert during the day for me. I only got to visit her yesterday evening and she was fighting sleep really hard. She finally lost her battle and pretty much snoozed the whole time I was there. She's gorgeous when she sleeps so I'm certainly not complaining but I do love those eyes! Besides, I was simultaneously enjoying her beauty and cracking up at the dad who seemed to be participating in a log sawing contest a couple of bed spaces away. Everyone was laughing at him, poor guy. If only his wife had been there to kick him in shin... Hehe.

By the way, I've completely given up on being cool about Chloe's "eviction."

Please Pray for Ayden

Our NICU has two "old timers." Chloe and cutie pie named Ayden. Ayden is actually older than Chloe. He was born on August 5th at 23 weeks gestation. His parents are super sweet, super involved, and super young. I just adore them and I pray for them constantly. Ayden and Chloe have had a lot of the same problems. (They were even both in Michigan at the same time.) Only, Ayden's medical problems are much worse. Yesterday they got more bad news. I just wish I could wrap my arms around them and make it better.


Will you please pray for baby Ayden with me?


His mom recently started a blog for him and summarized the past five months in her first post.

http://aydensjourney.blogspot.com/

Day 144 - Avoiding The 'H' Word

Chloe's still doing pretty well. She still doesn't want to eat at night but seems to be eating pretty well during the day. They've switched her to ad lib ad lib feedings. This basically means that she can eat as much as she wants whenever she wants. And instead of waking her every 3 hours at night they'll only wake her if she hasn't eaten in 4 hours. Plus, the nurse practitioner said she's no longer concerned with the exact quantity that Chloe eats every three hours (or even over a day). She's more concerned that Chloe is having good quality feeds and that she's gaining weight. (She didn't gain weight for about 5 days while we eased her back to full feeds). She has gained puny amounts the last couple of days so we'd really like her to start putting the grams back on.

I've taken great pains to avoid asking about the 'H' word. It was too disappointing when they said, "maybe before Christmas" and then "maybe before the new year" and neither of those happened. (It might have also had something to do with the fact that those were holidays.) I decided I'm much happier in blissful ignorance - I just want to go in for a visit one day and see Chloe sitting in her car seat and ready to go. OK, maybe that's not so practical but you know what I mean...

Anyway, I was talking to the nurse practitioner yesterday about Chloe's progress. She said, "All Chloe has to do now is keep up her eating enough to stay hydrated and gain weight over the next few days. If she does well this week she could go home on Monday. Would that be a good day for you?" Here's how I feel about that statement:

"Oh Crap! I didn't want to know! Now, I just can't get too excited because that might not happen." / "Monday!?! Yippee!! Hooraay!! I can't wait for my little Princess to come home!!"

Well, at least Chloe is blissfully ignorant...

Day 142 - Come on Chloe

Chloe did great all day finishing her bottles but the didn't finish any of her bottles last night. She still has one more chance to finish a bottle before rounds today. Hopefully, last night was just a fluke and she's over it. Come on, Chloe. You can do it! You don't want that yucky tube back!

Day 141 - No more NG tube (again :-)

Chloe has been eating really well. So well, in fact, that they decided (once more) to remove her NG tube. I've been praying a lot about this amazing turn of events lately. She seems to be doing really well the last couple of days. It ocurred to me that it's really easy to be thankful when things are going well. Not so much when they aren't. It's a person of strong faith who can exclaim, "Glory to God" when things did not go their way. I think I've learned a lesson here - something for me to practice in the future.

So....Um...Can Chloe come home now?

Hehe.

Here's a close-up of chin and cheek support. Middle finger is placed under the chin and gently presses up to help keep her tongue/bottom lip latched on to the bottle. Index finger and thumb gently press up and in on the cheeks. (Too bad Chloe's cheeks are so small and hard to get hold of...) Pressure on the cheeks keeps her mouth in place and sort of reminds her that the bottle is in her mouth and that she's supposed to be eating. This is Chloe's big 2oz bottle :-)

Chloe eats in the "sideline" position. She lays on her side so that the milk flows into her mouth instead of straight to the back of her throat. This way she doesn't have to work so hard to keep the milk out of her airway. I just learned to cross my legs and put her bottom in the little "seat" created for her when I do that. Her back rests on my top leg. Feeling pretty proud of myself - can you tell?
5lb 8.5oz

Day 140 - New Tricks and Techniques

You'll never believe what Chloe did yesterday. I didn't see it so I'm not 100% sure that I believe it but three nurses swear that Chloe rolled herself from her stomach to her back twice. I'm not sure when she's supposed to do that but it seems kind of early for her to be doing tricks. They kept coming by yesterday and asking if I'd seen her new trick but I was there on a feeding mission and didn't have time to try it. They said she'd lift up her little hiney and waggle it around, get mad, then flip over! I'm sure it was spectacularly cute and hope she's in a performing mood today. I'm emptying my camera memory card just in case :-)

She actually had a pretty good day yesterday. She finished most of her bottles and the chicken-bone coughs she usually does were non-existent.

I've learned a few things in the last couple of days, too. On Friday night I tried feeding Chloe and she kept pushing the bottle out with her tongue. I thought maybe she needed to burp (even though she'd only taken 7cc's) but then she started falling asleep. Betty had finished her shift at 7pm and was off to the side charting for a couple of hours. She walked by on her way out the door, saw that Chloe wasn't eating (after a 100% success rate that day), and said, "Oh no [as in, I don't THINK so.]" She put her bag down and sat down to feed Chloe and show me some preemie feeding techniques. As it turns out, feeding a "difficult eater" preemie is a lot more complicated than feeding a full-term baby. As I sat there watching Betty feed Chloe I was simultaneously fascinated, focused on learning, grateful, and humbled. She learned these techniques at a feeding conference and they're certainly not intuitive so I don't feel badly about needing a lesson. But I couldn't help but feeling just a teensy bit stupid. Chloe took her entire bottle for Betty - yeah! Then her day nurse on Saturday mentioned "chin and cheek support." I came in for another lesson. She quickly showed me chin and cheek support (which I mastered with ease) and Chloe proceeded to finish her entire bottle. I asked for more because she still seemed hungry and she took an extra 30cc's!

Right now she's doing a great job taking her feeds and everything seems to be going well.

Someone's outgrowing her preemie clothes! I LOVE this outfit!

Mommy's feeling proud of her little princess. Chloe just finished her bottle!

Day 139 - Milk

Ok - so now that I'm over Texas' loss I can write an update without being such a grump ;-) Actually, I'm quite proud of those guys for doing so well without Colt. And what a class act he was! "Glory to God... God is in control... You can't ask why things happen..."

Chloe's IV went out last night but she seemed to be doing well tolerating feedings (she's still on straight EBM) so they just increased her to full feedings and stopped her TPN. Her newest daytime primary nurse, Betty (I'm greedy and now have two day and two night primary nurses for Chloe), decided to try a plain ol' generic nipple since she's getting thickened milk now. Chloe took all of her 45cc 9am feeding in just 11 minutes! Then she took another five because she was starving. Betty said she didn't spill a drop, gave a good burp, and was happy afterward. She also did well at her 12:00 feed. I told Betty, "I hope you have just discovered the final ingredient to Chloe's eating success!"

And on the subject of milk.... I had to rearrange my milk in our deep freezer a couple of days ago and thought I'd share with you/show off what I've been doing for 20 hours a week since the girls were born.

Here we have one empty deep freezer:

Here we have the recent contents of said deep freezer (147.2 pounds of milk, to be precise):

And here we have one full deep freezer:

I have room for one more small box and then I'll have to start filling our side by side in the garage! Have I mentioned my new nickname? BESSIE!