Just Keep Swimming
Keep on keeping on
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
We’re Back
There’s been some time since our last post. We’ve missed 36 weeks, 5 weeks old, and now 37 weeks. Changes have been fairly slow, so it just hasn’t seemed worth writing entire posts to keep up. As always, we’ll see how future posts go.
Feedings
These are still the biggest hurdle we’ve got to clear. There have been some significant changes, though, especially for Elizabeth.
She was working with an “Ultra Preemie” nipple. This is a very slow nipple that takes a lot of work to get anything out of; especially with a powdered formula like neocate1. We had tried to go to a faster nipple before, but she would overwhelm herself. She needed to work on the suck, swallow, breath pattern.
As she progressed, she seemed to be getting the process down. She would work hard for a while and we’d think she was doing great, then when we’d check, she had only taken ~9mls.
Last week the nursing team decided to try going with the Slow Flow nipple (between Ultra Preemie and Preemie). This made a huge difference. One of her first feeds with me using that nipple got her up to 69mls. That was out of 74. I couldn’t quite get her to take those last few, but that was impressive.
Since then we’ve had some other great feeds like that, but she’s still averaging ~50% or less over any 24 hour period. This roughly matches Aspen’s feeds, though Aspen is working with the faster Preemie nipple.
Still have some work to do here. Hoping for a breakthrough so that we can start the final flight plan home.
Baths
We were finally there for a bath! They get them approximately every three days, but they’ve typically happened in the middle of the night. We got to try it out and help with each of the girls. It’s not that much different than a normal infant at home, but it was a milestone for us.
Stools
First, some great news: neither girl has had any bloody stool for quite some time.
However, they both seem to have issues with constipation. This was not an issue while they were taking breastmilk, so it seems to be an issue with the formula. They each will go several days between, even though they’re both getting some pear juice a few times a day.
It doesn’t seem to be causing any discomfort for them, but it may be slowing down their feeds (we think).
Weight Gain
Both girls seem to be gaining properly, however, Elizabeth seems to be a little ahead of her growth curve. Because of that they’ve reduced her calories from 24 to 22 per unit (I’m drawing a blank on what that unit is). They were then going to add some liquid protein to the formula. It seemed that the protein caused her to be extra irritable, though, so they’ve stopped that for now. She does seem to spend quite a bit of time in the MommaRoo, which isn’t great.
As your PSA for the day, apparently you’re not supposed to let your infants sleep in their swings (not laying flat) unless you are actively monitoring them. It’s one thing in the NICU while they’re hooked up to all the monitors, but it’s a real risk in the wild.
Pictures
Of course we have some pictures. The first several were taken by the nurses and printed out after their 1 month/30 day anniversary. Enjoy!
The nurse ones (first six) are scanned in from printed pictures. Sorry for the grain, seems to be from the print and amplified by the scan.
Ongoing Updates
I’ll just have this at the bottom of every post going forward as a reminder. The “Stats” post has current information on feedings, size, and “going home” criteria. Check back if you’re interested in seeing what changes may have happened.
