Day 56, 12.15.08

Big news today... Evelyn is coming home tomorrow! I went to visit Evelyn this morning for her 9 AM feeding and the nurse practitioner turns to me and says - with a straight face - "Well, she's going home tomorrow." Of course my reaction was "Seriously?" Up until this point, we were all thinking Christmas was being hopeful. So it was quite a shock to be told just 24 hours in advance.

Of course we are happy and excited, but a little anxious too. Tomorrow is also my first day back to work after being on leave this whole time. Unfortunately, being on bedrest ate up most of my FMLA leave and I actually had to request an additional 3 weeks off to make it to this point. So please make sure to keep Roger in your prayers as he will certainly have his hands full this week.

Also wanted to give a heads up that we will be retreating into our cave for awhile as Evelyn can't "come out and play" yet. We've been told to basically keep her home until at least a month after her due date (Jan 20), and to limit visitors. No trips to the grocery store, no church, no other excursions. Basically, she's allowed to go to her pediatrician and back. Of course this will make things difficult for Roger and the girls, but we are so excited to have her home with us. We will plan an open house once Evelyn is able to have visitors.

Having said that, if you live nearby and happen to have an extra casserole or make too much food some night for dinner, we would certainly accept that. ;-)

It's been awhile since I updated the blog, so you may have noticed from the picture above that Evelyn no longer has her feeding tube. That was taken out a couple days ago and she continues to do great on her bottle feedings. Evelyn is up to 2,580 grams or 5 lbs 11 oz. What a chunker!

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Day 50, 12.09.08

Happy 7 weeks Evelyn! She is still just 34 weeks gestational age, which means she really should still have 6 more weeks in the womb left to go - but look at how fantastic she is doing! She was up to 2,345 grams, or 5 lbs 3 oz, yesterday.

We brought Rebecca and Chloe in to visit today and had Rebecca hold Evelyn for the first time. She did great!

Evelyn is still working on bottle feeding. She can finish most of them, but there are times when she's just too tired. Like today was bath day and after her bath, she was not that interested in taking her bottle.

Her feedings are now up to 52 cc's/feeding and they dropped her down to 24 calories/ounce. The nurses call the 26 calorie/ounce"jet fuel" and it was giving Evelyn quite a bit of gas. Hopefully she'll be more comfortable on the 24 calorie/ounce.

Day 47, 12.06.08

Oops - I guess it's been awhile since I last updated the blog. Roger has been very busy at church this week, and when Roger's busy, I'm busy. Tis the season.

Evelyn is doing great and continues to grow and get big. The last weight we have is from Friday and she was up to 2,180 grams or 4 lbs 13 oz. She is doing better eating from the bottle. She's taken the bottle for every feeding yesterday and so far today. The effort of eating from the bottle is still too much for her sometimes, so whatever she doesn't finish from the bottle is still given to her through the feeding tube.

Evelyn continues to have some of her spells, but they are usually only when she's eating or soon after she's finished eating and she's recovering on her own. Roger talked with the doctor today and she told Roger that she would like to work on getting Evelyn home for Christmas. Of course Roger agreed! Now Evelyn just needs to work on taking all of her bottle, all of the time and stop having so many spells. Christmas is only 3 weeks away!

Day 41, 11.30.08

Evelyn started taking a bottle today!!! She is doing well and when Roger was there this afternoon, Evelyn took nearly the entire bottle in 10 minutes! It took her another 20 minutes to finish the last 10 cc's or so, but still, amazingly well. She will still have a feeding tube to help her finish her feeds until she can finish her entire bottle in 30 minutes or less. Whatever she doesn't finish will be fed in through her feeding tube.

Here she is today holding Roger's hand. Notice... no feeding tube through her nose. They had to take it out to switch sides anyway, so they left it out for a while. It's so nice to see her pretty face with nothing attached!

She is now up to 44 cc's/feeding and has doubled her weight to 2,040 grams (4 lbs 8 oz). She's still having some spells, but is recovering on her own. She'll have to grow out of these and be on 100% bottle feeds before she can come home. We're getting more excited about being able to bring her home sooner rather than later, but we still think Christmas is a good target date.

One other update is that Roger and I took our infant CPR class - a requirement for us to be able to bring Evelyn home. We hope to never use it.

Day39, 11.28.08

Evelyn lost some weight today, but that was to be expected. She had 3 BIG poops today and they stopped giving her the sodium supplement, which was causing her to retain some extra fluids. Yesterday she weighed 2,015 grams (4 lbs 7 oz) and today she weighed 1,990 grams (4 lbs 6 oz).

She is now getting 40 cc's/feeding and they shortened her feeding time to just one hour. Evelyn is handling this shortened time just as well as when she was getting fed over 2 hours. They will likely shorten this to just 30 minutes and start trying her on a bottle over the next few days.

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Day 38, 11.27.08

Happy Thanksgiving! Evelyn is growing and thriving in her open crib. She is currently at 1,980 grams, or 4 lbs 6 oz. They are now feeding her over 1.5 hours, rather than the 2 hours she was at previously and she seems to handling this change well. Once she's on the bottle, they want her to be able to complete her feeding within 30 minutes. She remains at 37 cc's/feeding, but this will likely be increased today or tomorrow.

So, in order for her to come home, she needs to be taking a bottle exclusively and have 5 days of no "spells." She's already maintaining her own body temperature. Maybe a Christmas homecoming? It's not out of the realm of possibilities, but wouldn't be a surprise if she takes longer. She's already calling the shots!

Day 36, 11.25.08

Look who's in a big girl bed! Today, Evelyn was moved to an open crib and so far is able to maintain her temperature all on her own. So long as she is able to maintain her temperature at, or around, 37 degrees Celsius (98.7 F), she should be able to remain in this bed.

Other good news is that the ophthalmologist came by yesterday (11.24) and found that Evelyn does not have retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). They will continue to check her eyes every 2 weeks until her eyes and the blood vessels in the eye reach maturity. Then she will have to follow-up with a doctor at 6 months and then again (I think) when she's 2 years old for another exam. Some things like cross-eyes, lazy eye, and extreme nearsightedness are more common in preemies, but may only become apparent when they are 8-12 months old.

We also forgot to mention a few days ago that the doctor noticed a heart murmur on Evelyn. Thankfully it appears to be a benign murmur that she may grow out of, but they are following it and may do an ultrasound of her heart sometime before she is discharged just to take a closer look. If this was a bad murmur, Evelyn would likely not be able to maintain her oxygen saturation and other vital signs as well as she is currently doing.

Evelyn continues to gain weight and was up to 1,905 grams (4 lbs 3 oz) yesterday (11.24). Her old bed - the isolette/incubator - had a scale integrated into the bed. Now that she is in the open crib, the nurses have to weigh her on a regular scale. Unfortunately, they were all being used at the time she is usually weighed, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow for the latest weight. Evelyn's nurse cautioned that her weight may go down simply because we are weighing her on a different scale, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens...