Did It Click? 3/23/13
Chris
Today was a big day! We began with Melissa and I running around the house trying to make it to our car seat class on time. To any onlooker, I'm sure we looked like a normal family rushing around and hurrying to get everything, including our baby carrier, into the car. The only difference was that we didn't have our baby in her carrier. A car seat and CPR class is required for every family in the NICU. Because preemies are so small, it is necessary to learn how to safely load our little ones into the car seat. There was a lot of detail and I think we took it all in as we compared what we learned with our own car seat (which the instructor referred to as "futuristic"). We also learned how to perform infant CPR and what to do if she is choking—hopefully skills we will never need to use. As we joked, the two-hour class is composed of one hour and 45 minutes of learning how improperly using a car seat can kill your kid and then 15 minutes of learning how to bring her back to life by doing infant CPR.
We took advantage of having Hattie's car seat with us and performed her car seat trial this afternoon. We strapped her into the seat as if we were going on a car ride and she had to sit there without anyone touching her for 90 minutes while Nurse Kristi monitored her heart rate, respiration rate and oxygen saturation. We put rolled up receiving blankets on either side of her body and two rolled up wash cloths at her crotch to make her fit in the car seat properly. It has been several weeks since Hattie has worn a pulse oximeter and it was exciting to see her saturation at 100% the entire time. As we watched her sleep soundly in her seat—never once crying—we were reminded of a time not too long ago when we prayed so intensely for her levels not to drop. Our little girl has come such a long way and we are tremendously proud of her.
Today was a great day for feeding as well. Everything in Hattie's brain seems to be clicking and she is steadily working her way toward full feeds from the bottle. The other night we were talking to Nurse Maria about how frustrating the inconsistencies in feeding can be. She explained it so well saying that Hattie's brain is still very immature. She said to imagine her brain like a net with several holes in it. Once everything "clicks" the pieces of the net fuse together and fill in the gaps and Hattie will suddenly have the whole feeding thing figured out. Please pray with us that things have "clicked" for Hattie and we're on our way to ad lib feeding!
She got fed through her tube at 1:30 and 4:30 a.m. and then ate full 48 cc bottles for the rest of the day! We know it won't be long before her feeding tube is nothing more than a distant memory and we can't wait to look at her pretty face with no tube or tape!
Hattie weighs 2,583 grams or 5 pounds, 11.11 ounces.
