New Purple Hat For Her 2 Week Birthday

One more week down. Kayley is now 2 weeks old. In the NICU, they refer to her in her gestational age still..29 weeks. Any way you think about it, Kayley has come a long way in such a short time. However, we still have a long way to go.

The doctors turned Kayley's breaths per minute back up to 15. They decided that Kayley was working too hard to try to breathe through the tube in her mouth that they wanted to give her some more assistance. Hopefully this will help her rest more until Tuesday when she is taken off the ventilator for the 3rd time.

The doctors also decided to increase the nutrients that they put in the breast milk for Kayley. She handled the first dosage so well, they're giving her more. This also means that her feedings are staying at 17 cc's until they determine that she's handling the added nutrition. We also got confirmation today that 24 cc's is considered Kayley's full feeding.

As I said in my previous post, Megan and Marla took the day shift with Kayley again today. They went in the morning and stayed until about 4:30 pm. Megan held Kayley again and this time she had the nurses recline her a bit to take the weight and tension off her arms. It helps a lot to have Kayley just laying on you and you only have to use your hands to keep her contained. Even a 3 lb girl can get heavy after hours of holding. When Megan was done, Drew and I met her and Marla for some pizza. After eating, we exchanged duties. I headed to the hospital and Drew went home with his mom.

When I got to the hospital, the nurse and I planned Kayley's bath. Kayley gets a bath every three days now. Since Megan did the last one, I got to do this one. The bath was another sponge bath. We start with face cleanup, move down to the arms, chest, and back, then down to the butt and legs, and finally finish by washing her hair. It's a pretty long process that really takes two people. One to move and hold Kayley and the other to clean her. I was the cleaner. Kayley normally gets pretty mad during these kinds of activities so they normally don't like to have anyone hold her afterward because they want her to settle down and rest. So I thought I was out a hold tonight. However, Kayley handled the bath very well and didn't get too worked up which meant that I could hold her after if I wanted to. I'm sure you all know my answer to that.

Before I held Kayley, we weighed her and measured her length. To our surprise, Kayley came in at a whopping 1360 grams. We weighed her twice to make sure it was accurate. Last night she was 1260 grams. At birth she was 1355 grams. So, a major jump in weight. Looks like our holding is paying off. When we measured her length, she was 16 inches long. Kayley was 15.5 inches at birth. So, even though it doesn't look like it, she is growing like a weed!

While they were moving Kayley from the bed to my chest, I noticed something missing. The IV in her foot was gone. They took it out today. The nurse said they really had no use for it and with it just being there unused, it could have issues. So, out it came. I'm glad because it really did look very uncomfortable.

Last, as you can see in the picture above, Kayley was given a new knitted purple hat. It looks great on her. We've been given so many things from the nurses. Volunteers knit some things or just donate items and bring them to the NICU. Then when the nurses need something, they go to the donated stuff and pick something out. So far they've given Kayley a couple blankets, this hat, and some beenie babies. More great things to keep Kayley's room and bed looking more like home.