NICU - Day 46

Date: January 7th
Gestational Age: 34 weeks 5 days
Weight: 1930 grams (4 lbs 4 oz)

Don't lie, you wish you had an elephant on your outfit!

Overnight, Maddie got to do some tummy time, but it wasn't the typical kind. She laid on her Zaky and wrapped her arms around it. She seemed sort of weirded out by it at first, but soon fell asleep.

Does this count as planking?

Madelyn also had to have her ostomy changed again today. She apparently leaked all over at about 6 am today, leading to an outfit change (she apparently thought I was slacking on the outfit changes). When they changed her bag, they also put a new catheter into her lower intestines because there was a fear that it was all just backing up into her bag since she hasn't pooped since they started the re-feedings. Hopefully she'll get some pooping done today!

This morning in rounds, there was more discussion of mixing her breast milk with formula to improve her absorption, but the GI doctor assured me that this was not part of his plan, at least not yet. We saw the GI doctor this morning, who said that he'd be meeting with peds surgery today and will be asking about when they want to get Madelyn all hooked back up. It could be in the next 2-4 weeks. He suspects that she will be at 2 kg for weight by this weekend, which is the minimum amount for her to have surgery. I would not be surprised if she was on the longer path to getting hooked up however because of how recently she had her last surgery. She is continuing to gain weight like a champ though. The GI doctor also said that they might increase Maddie's feeding to 2 mLs every hour starting tomorrow.

"Deep breath in, hold, and exhale."

Today in NICU Parents Group we learned about stress and how to recognize it in our babies and ourselves. It made me think that Maddie is stressed a lot of the time. In the above picture, I caught her in what they described as "relaxed mode". We also got a coupon for a free chair massage in the hospital. I can't wait to use it! I also got to see some of the parents that I had met weeks ago that had a baby at 24 weeks. He was Maddie's neighbor when she was in Bay 1 for her surgery. It was good to see them and hear about their little boy's progress.