This little fighter is now two months old! She really looks better and better every day and more and more like a normal sized little baby. Her due date is on January 3rd, so she's a week away from the time she should have been born.
They weigh her every evening and we love hearing how much weight she has gained each day. She now weighs 5.25 pounds (the photo shows her weight in kilos and is from a few weeks ago). Only .25 pounds more to go and she'll be big enough for her surgery! They said they have her surgery tentatively scheduled for mid-January and then the doctor said that best case scenario she'll be able to come home 2-3 weeks after that--but of course it depends on how well her feedings go once they re-attach her intestines. So we're expecting/hoping to have her home sometime in February.
Yesterday while I was there her physical therapist came by to work with Carly on her oral feedings. The therapist cut a little hole in the tip of a binky and then put a feeding tube connected to a little syringe full of breast milk through the little hole. She had Carly first start sucking on the binky until she looked comfortable and calm and then she pushed a teeny tiny drop of milk through the tube and into Carly's mouth. The milk kind of freaked Carly out and she immediately started making choking/gagging sounds, her stats went crazy and they had to give her quite some time to recover. After she recovered they tried it again. The second time she didn't freak out quite as bad and just stopped sucking when she felt the drop of milk and then started sucking again after she swallowed it. The goal is for her to learn how to suck, breath & swallow without any pauses or difficulties. Based off of yesterday's experience, she's gonna need a lot of work! They will be working with her on this every day and she won't be able to come home until she is totally comfortable eating orally.
This is her respiratory therapist getting her new cannula hooked up. She's on the smallest type of cannula now and is on all oxygen and the flow is nearly off, which is awesome!
She upgraded to a big girl crib, which we have been so excited about! When I go to visit her I can just pick her up to hold her and put her back in without the nurses help, which has been so nice. If I'm there during her cares they let me change her diaper, take her temperature and change a little sensor they have on her foot.
She got to meet the Utah Jazz and they signed a little basketball for her, which was really cool.
My cute cousin Brian works at the hospital, so it's been fun to run into him every so often.
Mike and I are holding up really well and have settled into our new life and routine as NICU parents. I've come to really enjoy the drive to and from the hospital each day and enjoy listening to talks on CD and the
Doug Wright show on my morning drives. Snuggling skin-to-skin with Carly is so therapeutic for me and has been such a blessing. Unfortunately my car broke down about two weeks ago (it needs a new transmission....bleh!) so it's made it a little tricky to get to the hospital on a daily basis recently, but we're making things work with just the one car. I think this might be a sign that it's finally time for me to break down and get a minivan (did I really just say that?).
Favorite quote this week (saw this on the wall at
Pieology Pizzeria last night...such great pizza!):
“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the
living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in
your eyes, kindness in your smile.”
-Mother Teresa
Life rules.
