10 Days

Penelope is now 10 days old. She's thriving, and it is amazing. Today's nurse let me be a little more hands on than I have been. I did my usual diaper changes, taking her temp, and cleaning the excess drool out of her mouth. Then I got to put lotion on her and clean her face. The nurse asked if I wanted to help change her bedding, so I got to pick out some new blankets. It's a three person job to change her bedding. One person holds the equipment, one person changes the blanket, and one person (me) PICKS UP THE BABY! I know how little a pound is, but I didn't really grasp exactly how little that was! While we had her all unbundled the nurse had to leave the room to talk about another patient, so I quick planted a big old kiss on her forehead!  I know I'm not supposed to, but that's what's going to happen when you leave me unsupervised! 

Her weight is currently 1lb 10oz, but don't get too excited yet. The medicine they have her on for the PDA can cause fluid retention, so we don't know how much of that is water weight. Speaking of the PDA, she has had two rounds of treatment. Both rounds have helped shrink the PDA, but it is not closed. They started the third and final round this evening. If this round doesn't work then it will have to be closed surgically. Basically they will make a tiny incision in her back, put a suture on the PDA to seal it, then close her up. The procedure would happen in her room. The recovery time would set us back a few days, but not weeks. So, it's not great news, but it's also not as horrible as I had made it out to be in my head. Let's just pray we don't have to go down that road at all.