Day 70

Today was day 70 and my favorite doctor was on service. I asked him if he thought we would be able to go home by day 100 and he said it's possible but not likely. On top of that we found out that Penny has an intestinal hernia which will require surgery. It's not urgent so it will be done closer to when we go home. Seeing that I was bummed, the nurse decided we could at least try a crib so there would be some sort of progress. Penelope had her 4 hour crib trial this afternoon and she PASSED! So we can check that off the list! She also got to discontinue 2 medications and they are letting her outgrow 3 others. So we are making progress where we can.

No Change

Penelope is 4lbs 12oz today. There were no changes to her feeding or respiratory care. So whatever Dr Klein did seems to be giving him the desired results. I'm not sure what day her ROP check will be since a new Opthamologist comes on service May 1. She is currently on 3 liter high flow to optimize oxygen so we can't move to a crib or start bottles. So we are just sort of hanging out. Today has been pretty low key. Penny had a bath this morning, and had a couple hours of mommy snuggle. We have a research follow up this afternoon for the oxygen study and then we will snuggle some more. At least we get lots of snuggle time these days!

Ultrasound

Penelope had her follow up head ultrasound today and it came back normal. So that's one less thing on our list! There were no changes to her feeding schedule and her weight is 4lbs 10oz. There were some changes to her respiratory care to optimize her effective oxygen levels to help heal her ROP. Dr Klein, the head of the NICU and respiratory expert, was brought in for a consultation. He made the changes and said he will be back tomorrow to check the numbers. I figure if it takes him 30 minutes to explain to the nurse practitioner all the details of why this change is better, it is probably going to take even longer for me to get it. It's best to just let Dr Klein do his respiratory magic. So we are in a holding pattern until her eye exam next week.