Our Strong Little Girl

The day started off with Kayley getting back off the bilirubin lights. It was a short 24 hour stint. Her pooping and the lights did the job. Let's hope she can manage to stay off them for a little longer this time.

The next news we received is that Megan was discharged today. She finally got to go home. She left the hospital around 5 pm. It's the first time she has been out for over 20 days. The bad part about it is that while she was in the hospital, the weather was pretty mild. Not today. The reading on the car temp was 114 degrees when I came down here around 1:30 pm. So, she gets to experience a bit of a heat wave. Welcome to the outside world!

Megan and I attended our first class today called First Steps. It's for parents who are just beginning the journey with their baby in the NICU. It's about what to expect and what is good for your baby. It was good to sit down and hear all that stuff but I feel like we already knew most of it because the nurses are so open here. Still, I'm sure well be one of the first ones to sign up for the next class on the agenda called Getting Close. That one is still a little ways off. I'm sure it'll come quicker than we think though. Time has been going pretty fast in my opinion.

After the class, guess who got to hold Kayley for the first time? That's right. It was.....Megan! I changed her diaper and bathed her first. I guess fair is fair. Megan said it was great. We took a lot of photos. Again, they really like the kangaroo hold around here. It's where the parent and the baby are skin-to-skin. Kayley really seemed to benefit from it. The nurses said her oxygen levels increased tremendously and she was able to hold it up there for some time. Megan held Kayley for around an hour and a half. With the amount of effort it takes to get Kayley out of the isolette, they really want us to hold her at least an hour if not more. 2 to 3 hours is great. It takes a big bladder and a full stomach. I'm a little jealous, I'll admit it. But I've already called next.

Megan's Mom took Megan home shortly after she was done holding Kayley. It was pretty hard for her to leave Kayley as you can imagine but she also seemed a little excited to get home. Like it helped me to have Megan here the first night I left, it helped Megan knowing that I was sticking around for awhile tonight. We like to meet the night nurse and help out during Kayley's 8:30 pm feeding and interaction.

We learn something new in the hospital every day it seems. Tonight, our nurses and the respiratory therapist noticed that Kayley's tape to keep her ventilator tube in was very loose. The funny thing was that they just retaped her this morning. Come to find out from the respiratory nurse, they are using a trial tape in the NICU. The old tape worked great but it contains some latex. Evidently they are shying away from products that have latex in them so babies don't develop an allergy towards the latex. The new tape doesn't contain latex but so far, it seems like the tape trial isn't doing so well. The repiratory nurse said it hasn't been real great so far. Of course while they were retaping, Kayley showed them her fiesty-ness. She grabbed the tube multiple times. They said she was too strong for the new tape so they re-inforced it with some regular tape. Someday she just might decide on her own that she needs the tube out. Lets hope she has a little more patience than that because normally the doctors like to make those decisions.

As you already know, I normally save some good news for last. Well, tonight is not an exception. While I was waiting for the night nurse to come in and do her nightly checks with Kayley, Dr. Carballo (our admitting doctor) came in to discuss Kayley's head ultrasound results from today. The bleed improved and went down! That's the best news we could have expected. I was overjoyed when I heard her tell me that. What a relief. We don't talk about it too much but I know it was weighing on all our minds this week. They will have another ultrasound next week to look at the progress again. If it continues to go down, they will quit the ultrasounds and we most likely won't discuss it ever again except when we're remembering back to this time. What a strong little girl we have...