26 days

26 days old/days in the NICU

Weight: 3 lbs 2 oz (-1 ounce)

Ella has some congestion and her oxygen needs were up last night, so today her doctor decided to bring her cannula from .5 liter of pressure up to 1 liter of pressure. She was needing between 40-50% oxygen and now she's back down to around 30%. The way the nurse explained it was that it's not a step backwards, it's more of a sideways step but this way, she's burning less calories while trying to breathe. Ella isn't gaining weight the way they'd like her to, and as you can see she lost an ounce (BOO!) so hopefully this will help. Dr. Morozek decided to keep her feedings exactly as they are because she handled them well (so 18 ml every 2 hours with the human milk fortifier every other feeding) and she's planning on adding the human milk fortifier to every feeding starting tomorrow. I'm glad she's handling it better this time around. 


Today, Ella had her first eye exam. Premature babies are at risk for something called retinopathy of prematurity. Basically, when full term babies are born their eyes are fully developed but when a baby is born prematurely the eyes haven't had a chance to develop and the vessels can have problems. There is a lot more to it but honestly, I'm not even going to TRY and explain it. Anyways, she had her first eye exam and she was found to have premature eyes (duh) but within the normal range so, hurray! They'll do another exam in 2 weeks and we'll probably need to continue seeing a pediatric opthomologist once she's home. 

Tonight the NICU is having a pizza party for the families, and all family members can come so Olivia and my mom are coming too. I'm pretty excited to meet some other families, especially since we've been here for almost a month and we're looking at another 7ish weeks in the NICU. 

Today, I would be 33 weeks pregnant. It's been kind of a rough day for me simply because I SHOULD still be pregnant. Several people have said to me that our situation is just like me being pregnant still but I get to hold her everyday instead (since she's in the hospital and not at home). I appreciate the sentiment and that people want to help you feel better, but it's really not anything like that. If I were still pregnant, I would not be watching her struggling to breathe or worrying about how much weight she's gaining or every single gram that she loses. I would know that she was protected and warmed by my womb and was gaining weight thanks to the nutrients provided by my placenta. Plus, I'd have that super adorable baby belly where, at this point it's just the right size to be nice and big and round without being extremely uncomfortable yet! 

Tomorrow is Olivia's birthday! We're going to get up early, stop into the NICU for a short time and then go to the Mall of America to do build-a-bear with Olivia! On Saturday morning, we're having her birthday party at an indoor park with some close friends of hers (and ours) and her cousin. She picked a Mickey Mouse cake and blue monkey plates. I'm pretty excited to celebrate her birthday and on Sunday...she gets to meet Ella!!