Transitions

Another weekend passed without notice. Since our days are similar, wake, eat, do task, go to Naomi's, it's difficult to discern Saturday and Sunday from another other weekday. This weekend though, we started to learn how our near future might change.

Naomi was continuing to do well on Friday. She was up to 24 mL milk, which is where she will stay for her weight (approximately 3 pounds). They will start to add human milk fortifier to her milk too. It is basically extra protein and vitamins for her. I imagine them grinding up Flinstone chewable vitamins in the back room and adding it to her milk, but it's probably a more elaborate formula.

Naomi has also started sucking during her feedings. It is a skill that the nurses help us to help Naomi develop. My experience prior to this was from a black and white pencil sketch from some parenting book. The picture would be more representative if it could capture a baby going after a nuzzle Evel Knievel style. After some friendly advice though, Naomi calmed down and pretended to eat.

Naomi appeared to like being IV free. She is able to move her arms around more and we have fewer cords to untangle after kangaroo time. It also allows her to perform miracle Houdini acts, which I am sure every parent observes post-escape routine. We've started adding wrapping and tucking in routines to temperature measurements and diaper changes. I even washed her face over the weekend, which she seemed to enjoy. I was expecting a slightly madder response, but so far I think she has saved her stink eye faces and tantrums for Ana.

The only minor setbacks have been a couple of spells she has had recently. She was the rock star of the NICU since she didn't have any for the first two weeks, which meant she got to wear clothes for the first time. Her first spell was Saturday which meant she only had clothes for one day.

Her spells have been primarily desaturations, but her heart rate has also dropped substantially. The nurses have responded promptly. So far Ana and I haven't been there to witness one. For those of you unfamiliar with spells, they are basically when the baby forgets to breath, that is why Naomi is on caffeine. It is common in early birds since they normally wouldn't have to breath at this point in their life.

The good news is Naomi's heart murmur appears to be a whisper of its former self and today the doctor reported that she was unable to hear one. We were very happy to hear the good news. We've been fortunate to have many more ups and relatively minor downs for the first three weeks.

Today, Naomi is 32 weeks. It will still be at least two weeks until we try to feed her without a tube and up to four to eight weeks until she can come home. Her neighbors have since rotated out three to four times in each room. It's always nice to see parents arriving with a car seat since it means they will be taking their little one home. If all goes well during the next week or so, Naomi may be transferred to the Infant Care Center (ICC) at Children's.