Cupcake-Scented Baby 3/18/13
Melissa
Hattie ate her whole bottle at 1:30 a.m. and slept through her 4:30 a.m. feed. She breastfed at 7:30 a.m. and ate more than half her feed (26 cc)! She didn't wake up for her 10:30 a.m. feed. Dr. Alexander gave me lots of updates today. Hattie needs to master eating before she can leave the NICU. She needs to take all eight full feeds orally for 48 hours. Then she will be put on an "ad lib" feeding schedule where she decides when and how much she wants to eat. (Right now she eats every three hours.) Once she is ad lib she will have to hit a quota of milk for each shift and cannot go more than four hours without eating. Dr. A mentioned she will need to do the car seat trial, have an MRI and get a hearing test before she leaves. He never actually said the word discharge but we know it's getting closer!
Hattie started her two month immunizations. She will get one shot per day for the next five days. Nurse April gave Hattie two milligrams of liquid Tylenol through her tube. We let the Tylenol work for about an hour and then Hattie experienced her first shot--no hepatitis B for this baby! April gave Hattie the shot in her right thigh; I'm glad she has some chub on her legs now to help absorb the pain. The shot startled Hattie and she screamed a silent cry and turned beet red.
Hattie left 20 cc in her 1:30 p.m. bottle. We are attributing her not finishing her bottle to her being drowsy from the Tylenol. We kangarooed until her 4:30 p.m. feed and when I put her back in her bed she was rooting around like a crazy baby. Nurse April fed Hattie a bottle (I desperately needed to pump) and she ate the whole thing!
Chris gave Hattie a bath tonight and she loved it. He did an excellent job and was so sweet talking to her while he was bathing her. As soon as he pulled her out of the water she pooped on the towel--I guess she was really relaxed! We used new soap and lotion the NICU is testing and it made Hattie smell like a cupcake.
Hattie took her whole bottle for me at 7:30 p.m. I held her on my shoulder for a while before passing her off to Chris to kangaroo. Hattie took her whole bottle for him at 10:30 p.m.
We are celebrating that Hattie nippled six feeds today and of those ate four full bottles. Our big girl weighs 2,431 grams or 5 pounds, 5.75 ounces.
As I was driving home tonight I could smell Hattie's cupcake lotion on me and I couldn't help but tear up wishing my sweet girl was in the car with me.
