Life in the 'sipp: Week Two with Ellie

NICU
Week 2

*May 11, 2016—- Weight 1060 grams

You are one week old!!!!!

Today I held you skin to skin and you sneezed like 8 precious, dainty sneezes all in a row!! Funny Story! I bought a parking pass today, since you will be in the hospital for a while. Just look at the name of the person who issued it!

Addie Porter! What a lovely coincidence! Your brother and sister are always close!

*May 12, 2016 ——Weight 1.130 kg! Above birth weight!!!!

You are still on CPAP. Hoping to get you off that. But you continue to have spells of apnea and a few bradys.

You pooped today, finally! Two big poops. It had been awhile and so many people had been praying for you to poop. They put a suppository in your teeny little wrinkled saggy baggy bum. and out came a nice slimy poop!

I held you today and you got the most precious hiccups I have ever heard. We fall in love more and more every day.

Bless your little tiny bum!

When I saw your bum it reminded me of the Saggy Baggy Elephant!

*May 13, 2016—- Weight 1.140 Kg 15.15 inches long

Friday the 13th!!!

You are growing!! I held you this morning, skin to skin. No hiccups or sneezes, but still precious. You graduated from your giraffe bed to just a regular isolette! You don’t need the humidity anymore! Big girl! You are still having apnea spells, but they say that is due to your premature self and still need to develop things in your brain to remind you to breath and to remind your heart to beat! They did an ultrasound of your head today. I got to see your beautiful hair. I never got a call about the results, they say no news is good news. We all ate out at Panda Express, and brought your brother and sister by to show them where you live. They weren’t able to come back and see you due to the rules of the NICU, but they were close! I asked the nurse about your ultrasound, and she told me it appeared normal! So, that is good. It is coming from the nurse, but still, she’s a good nurse. Your feeding have increased too! You started at 2.5 cc of donor breastmilk, then upped it to 4 cc, then 6 cc. Today you are at 11cc!!! That is like a full syringe! I am impressed. I love when your eyes are open! I get to see the window to your soul. Bought you some clothes today!

You remind me a little bit of ET here :)

They are so tiny in person!

*May 14, 2016—- Weight 1065 grams

You dropped a little in weight, must be all that pooping you have been doing! I changed your diaper today and got to clean poop, that’s been a first for me!!! Sadly, I couldn’t hold you today. It is Saturday, and I had been running your brother and sister all around, and we got there nearing shift change, so it didn’t happen. But Mommy and Daddy hung out with you for a while. We were finally able to celebrate our 14 year anniversary, just a few days late. You are still having apnea episodes, but they upped your caffeine, hopefully that will help. Get strong little peanut, so you can come home!

Date Night with our favorite Preemie!

*May 15, 2016 — Weight 1.11 kg

You were given blood today. You keep having your apnea spells, so they checked your blood levels. Your hematocrit levels were down to 29, which is a bit low. Your body just wasn’t on breathing this early and doing all the stuff it had to. So they gave you a total of 20 cc of O- blood (super hero blood). They give it to you 10cc at a time, in a 2 hour duration. Then you get a 2 hour break. And then they give you the second dose. Because of the blood transfusion, they lowered your feedings from 14cc down to 3cc. They lower your feedings not to be mean, but since there will be an increase in blood, they don’t want your bowels to be too full and cause trouble. Since you do tolerate feedings well, they will bump you back up tomorrow. It is Sunday, so I came and visited you for several hours after lunch. I wasn’t able to hold you because you have an IV for the blood in you right arm and your PIC line in your left arm. Even though it hurt my heart some, it was what was best. Hopefully I can hold you tomorrow! You had 2 apnea spells while I was there. I don’t like it when you do that!! I also changed your diaper, you had a big old poop in there! Good job! It is no longer the slimy black meconium, it is the mustard yellow breast milk poop! It is so precious, as precious as poop can possibly get. So, Ellie, get to work on breathing and keeping that heart rate up! Keep gaining weight! Love you!

I love to see you awake!

Getting some super hero blood, hold on tight

Here is a little peek at your surroundings!

*May 16, 2016 ---Weight 1.117 Kg

You continue to have apnea spells, but not quite as bad. So maybe the super hero blood did help you! I got to do some kangaroos care (skin to skin) with you today. You were all folded up at first, it was a little scary to see just how flexible you are. We got your repositioned and it was perfect. All your numbers on the monitors were perfect! When we were putting you back in your isolette, one of your ears were folded in half! Yikes! The nurse straightened it up for you. I guess if we wanted you to have pointy elf ears, nows the time to do it!! Ha! When I first came in your were sleeping on your tummy, that’s the first time I have seen your sleeping that way! It was sweet! I love that I get to see your hair now, and your whole face!!!

May 17, 2016 Weight 1.128 Kg (you are growing!)

Today was a little hectic at the hospital! There was a new baby that was admitted and it seemed that her situation was pretty scary, several nurses were busy there, and it was right next to your bed. It was too chaotic, I didn’t dare ask for kangaroo time, even though I wanted to hold you. I changed a big poopy diaper, so you are doing good eating and pooping, that is a good thing. Still having apnea spells from time to time, I hope those slowly go away! My friend Tami Sanders made you a precious little name plate to put on your isolette, it will be precious! Keep growing champ!