contentment

It's been a long road, we are ready to take her home now. Please let it be soon.

Day 88 Practice makes perfect

Nina and I are getting better at bottle feeding.
Nina is getting an ounce every 3 hours and she is tolerating it great. No spit ups, no residuals.

Day 87 Mommy has to breathe!

Feeding a Mini Nina Preemie is pretty stressful. It's stressful b/c she has to stuck, swallow,breathe to drink her bottle. It's stressful b/c if I don't watch her the entire time she is eating, she may drop her heart rate. While I feed her my upper lip sweats and I am just nervous. I need to just relax b/c she needs to take bottles from Jason and me so WE CAN TAKE HER HOME. Mommy breathe!

Nina's off the IV (It blew last night at 4am) She'll be up to 28 ml tonight and they are increasing her milk intake pretty aggressively so we should be up at full feeds soon. She is receiving milk with fortifier.

She is off the caffeine, her breathing treatments have been discontinued, she is off the diuretics. (We told you all Nina would kick NICU Ass in June)
The next obstacle we face is the eye exam later this week. Nina has Stage 2 ROP and we will see if it has progressed to the point laser surgery is needed.

All we need to do is take every feed on a bottle and get past the eye test/maybe surgery and she will be
Nina -don't- let- the- door- hit- ya- in- the- ass-on- your- way- out Fox!!

Day 86 Sponge Baths and Bottle Feeds

Nina has been practicing bottle feeding for the past few days and she's now getting 20ml a bottle(30 ml = 1 oz) Nurse Josephine taught me to hold Nina sideways while feeding b/c it helps her breathe better during the feed.
Thanks Josephine! We think this is going to work out for us! (Me burping Nina with Josephine)

Weight check today: 3 pounds 13 oz
TPN done!

I also got the chance to give Nina a sponge bath tonight. We could not put her in the water b/c she still has IV which is coming out tomorrow.

Daddy's Turn

After watching mommy feed Nina a few times daddy figured he should take a crack at it. At about 9 pm to night I gave my little girl her first bottle feeding. I was a nervous wreck... was I holding her head right? is she getting enough? how do I know if she burbed? All legitimate questions I might add but after assurance from mom and nurse Laura that I did an ok job I felt a lot better. It is really amazing the joy you get from doing something so simple!!!!

As Nina grows she continues to be much more interactive. After tonight's feeding Nina was wide awake and wired. She stared at us as we talked to her and was fixated on me as I sang what I hope will be our song, "Whenever I See Your Smiling Face" by James Taylor. She was so fussy that even as we leaving tonight around 11 pm she was still wiggling around until nurse Laura put Nina on her belly.


She is continuing to progress as her feedings were moved to 12 ml every 3 hours which will change to 14 ml's at midnight. Nina also continues to breathe without any support. We also learned that tomorrow will be the last for TPN as her feeds continue to increase and approach what they were before her GI study.

One less wire!

Today I got to feed Nina and she did great. The Drs are going up on her milk intake very slowly. She is only getting 8 cc every 3 hours.
Dr Fry(GI guru) came in today and said Nina looked wonderful and we cannot rush the belly so slow and steady we go.

I washed and brought in some of Nina's mini preemie clothes today(very exciting for us) She is slowly getting weaned out of the isolette so she is able to wear her little outfits now. She is weighing in at 3 pound 9 oz!













Since Nina's doing great breathing on her own, the pulse oximeter monitor was removed! This is great for Jason and me b/c it's one less number we have to worry about on her monitor screen. (Yes we know Nurses, we should be looking at the baby and not the monitor :)

Got Milk?

Big day for Nina! She drank from a bottle for the first time! She took in 7cc (the whole amount b/c we are starting off small b/c of GI studies) and it's only up from here! I gave her the bottle and burped her and she did great! Thanks Nurse Karen for making this happen for us!! Today Nina also started weaning out of her isolette. Maybe next week she'll be in a big girl crib on full feeds. Let's get this thing going! We are sick of the hospital! We want to go home soon! Come on Nina!!

Today we said goodbye and congrats to Adelina.
Adelina was born along with her brother and sister 5 days after our girls were born. Addy was a NICU scholar and we hope to follow in her footsteps. Jen and Vince are in our thoughts tonight as they put Addy to bed for the first time in their loving home along with big sis Gianna!