July 26th, 2007

Last night, Megan graduated to a different isolette. She was in the "giraffe" isolette which is used for the smallest babies so the nurses can have the easiest access to the babies. Now they needed to free it up for another small baby. Imagine that - a baby smaller than Megan. I hope that baby has the strength and good fortune that Megan has had. I would imagine that now Megan has the same feeling as when you are not the newest employee anymore :)

She has been doing well. Her feedings have been going well which is a relief to me. She goes up and down with how much oxygen she needs from her ventilator, but the nurse said that was normal. I am going to ask today how they know when a baby is ready to wean off the ventilator.

She has also graduated in diaper size, but not because of her size.... She is now in the newborn swaddler because she pees so much :) However, the diaper has a lot of gaps in it, so I think she can still manage to pee the bed!

Our visit went well. The nurse said that in order for Megan to start to wean off the ventilator, two things would have to happen. One, she would have to maintain her "saturation" level on her monitor. This is the number that needs to stay between 85 and 95. It tells the nurse if she needs to turn the oxygen level up or down. Two, she would have to have several good blood gas tests. Right now hers are okay, but her CO2 levels are a little higher than what they are looking for. The nurse said that is normal for her gestational age, though.

The good news is that the settings on her vent are very low and she is doing a lot of work on her own. They have been turning it down a little each day which causes Megan to have to adjust to that and work more on her own. That is why her saturation levels still go up and down.

Her new isolette is pretty nice and is in the same spot that she has been in. She now has a red blanket that covers the isolette to keep light out. It's not as cute as the giraffes :)

Her feedings have been increased to 8.5 cc every 2 hours and will go up to 9 cc every 2 hours tonight. Tomorrow they expect to increase to 10 cc every 2 hours and also add a fortifier to her milk to add calories. She will be eating 3 oz of breastmilk per day! That is a long way from the 2 cc every 6 hours that she started with :)