31 Weeks 2 Days - 6 Days Old

Almost one week old! I think she looks different already when I look back at pictures from her birth day. I know it's been a long time since I've updated, I had either no time or no energy. I will try to remember everything that has changed. Here goes:

• Her last weight was 3 lbs 8 oz. 
• She is still on the Jet Ventilator which, it turns out, is the strongest (I don't know if that's the right word to use) one they have.
• They did her head ultrasound last week... and NO brain bleed! They did another one today, but they don't have the results back yet.
• She still has to be on quite a bit of pain meds. She's on Morphine and Ativan.
• She is handling her cares better. She used to have a very hard time when they did her cares - moving her, cleaning her mouth, changing her diaper, etc. She is handling them better now.
• After going on antibiotics they have rechecked her for GBS, and it came back negative. Great news!
• They will do a spinal tap to check for meningitis as soon as she is stable enough to handle it.
• She had another Echo on her heart. There is still a hole, but her heart is shunting correctly. 
• They started giving her colostrum and she is digesting it very well. She still hasn't had a bowel movement, but she still has great bowel sounds (yep, there is such a thing). Even though she hasn't pooped yet it's ok because when they draw all of the fluid up from her stomach (through the tube they draw everything out of her stomach to see if it's getting digested or not) she has never had anything left. She has digested it all! They keep upping the amounts of colostrum she gets and she continues to digest it. Good girl. She started at 2 ml each feeding and is up to 11 ml.
• The physical therapist came last week to look at her arms and legs. She was cramped in a weird position for so long that her hands and feet want to stay bent in unnatural positions, which isn't good for muscle development. She prefers to keep her right foot bent all the way up so it is touching her shin. It's kind of a strange sight. They have starting positioning her a little differently to help with that. The physical therapist today decided that we are going to wait until she is responding better to touch to start doing more. We will most likely have to keep working on these things when she comes home and who knows how far beyond that.
• She had an x-ray of her lung at 4:30 this morning. There was no air outside of the lung. They did another x-ray at 3pm and that one looked good also. They clamped off the chest tube and will recheck later to make sure there is no air outside of her lung. If there isn't any air they will remove the chest tube. Wow. 

Isn't it wonderful to see all of these miracles happening at the same time? Thank you for your prayers for Hazel and me. I haven't been doing well, but I have been comforted while going through all of this. Now if only we could pray that my pain meds would be twice as strong. ;)

Love,
Ella

I love her tiny hands!

 

This is her chest tube. You can tell her skin is red and very irritated.

They changed the bandaging and she was on antibiotics. Apparently one of them 

worked because it's fine now.

So much of the swelling has gone down that she ended up with all of this extra skin on her head.

It still makes me laugh to look at it.

I had asked Hazel's NICU nurse if I could have a diaper to take home to her siblings. 

The nurse wrapped up this cute little package of things they use to take care of Hazel.

When I gave it to the kids I showed them what her head measured when she was born.

They couldn't believe how tiny she was.

The bows in the hair have officially started.