Six days in and reasons to stay hopeful

What a great day- Lily's PDA is closed, she gained 50 grams at last night's weighing and another 40 grams as of 20 minutes ago! She's back up to her birthweight!

AND- she is having breast milk! She's down to 25% oxygen, and blood acidosity is heading in the right direction. Her vitals aren't swinging The milk seems to be sitting well in her system, and she's digesting it. Theyre feeding her .5 mL per hour on a continuous feed into her stomach. Every four hours, they check her stomach contents (I think they call it a reverse draw) to check for bile and digestion rate. They also measure her stomach girth, to make sure shes not bloating. At the last draw (12am) Lily still had 3.5cc's worth of milk in her stomach, or about seven hours' worth. The nurse said that was slow in terms of digestion. They'll either slow the feed, let her rest, and try again- or they'll draw all the milk out, toss it, and resume the feed.

So we've gotten a lot of good news today. Every time our faces light up in the NICU, the nurses are quick to remind us that there will be setbacks at some point. They nurses will never say "your baby is going to be OK." NICU nurses don't say that.

One of the strange things about the NICU- no babies crying. Not a peep. All the babies are too small to cry. I'd do anything to hear lily let out a nice loud wail. I think back to before this all happened, before this altered existence started... I was really looking forward to having another kid. I was not necessarily looking forward to the first six months. To non-parents, that may sound horrible. To parents, you know exactly what I mean. The first six months stink- sleep deprivation, puke everywhere, poop that's like road tar, you know the deal. I guess my point here is that now, I can't wait for the first six months home. The first time lily pukes all over me isn't going to be gross- it's going to be great. Staying up all night - child's play compared to having a kid in the NICU. As each day passes I become more confident that if Sara and I can do this, we can do anything- literally, anything. The same goes without saying for Lily.

We're celebrating a week of life tomorrow. The PDA closed without surgery. Lily's eating breast milk, and her vitals are critically stable. We have so much to be positive about! Sara said it best- we're not yet out of the woods, but they seem to be thinning.