Day 15: Three in a row!

Today makes three good days in a row! Here are today's steps in the right direction:

1) Lily is up on her feeds, to 2.5mL/hr, almost to where she was a few days ago. She's tolerating them well, digesting at a good rate.

2) Her nurses were able to wean down further on both the ventilator's air pressure and its oxygen saturation. She's been stat'ing well at between 25% and 30% oxygen for most of the day, with the occasional de-stat down to the 60s or 50s (blood oxygen saturation). Right now, I'm at the NICU and her ventilator is set at 28%, just 7% above room air, and she's stat'ing well... mid 90s!

(I stopped writing for a minute and she de-stat'ed, down to mid 60s, but then she bounced back up to 92... roller coaster)

3) There's another positive- even though she de-stats, she's been mostly pulling out of them on her own, without the nurses needing to crank up her oxygen.

4) Lily gained 30 grams! She's now 850 grams, or 1 pound 14 ounces

It's strange that this is starting to seem so normal. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Sara and I would be NICU parents. But they're not as uncommon as I thought... Every day, I hear stories of hope - they always put a smile on my face!

The docs are talking about switching lily to the CPAP (continuous positive air pressure) ventilator, which would get the breathing tube out of her throat. She would still have the feeding tube, but that's much smaller. The thing that worries Sara and me about the CPAP is that since it's only positive air pressure, and all the in/out movements are left to lily, she may have episodes of what are known as "Brady/apneas". During Brady apneas she basically would stop breathing for 15 or so seconds, and heart rate sometimes falls. I heard s few other NICU parents talking about them in the elevator- apparently they can continue after preemies are sent home, and sometimes preemies are sent home with monitors for their sleep.

Sara and I saw a family leaving the NICU with their baby the other day. Hard to describe how much we want to be in those shoes.

Thanks everyone for the support and prayers-- they are working!