Every Breath She Takes

I just changed her diaper and she is waiting for her nurse and me to give her a bath. I couldn't resist getting a naked picture of her. Of course this is the picture we will use to embarrass her in high school when she brings her friends over.


This is one of Amelia's best fitting outfits. It comes all the way down to her knees, but it fits her frame very well. Thank you Miss Becky!


Clean as a whistle after the bath I gave her.

So where did we leave off? Oh yes. Friday was a bad blood gas so they turned her back up to 25 on her pressure. They took a blood gas this morning and her CO2 was 67. 60s are good. So tonight at midnight they are going to try to turn her down to 24 again and hopefully this time it will stick. I talked to her doctor today and she told me that if Amelia behaves herself and everything goes along without any hiccups or back tracking -- she could be off the vent in as little as 5 more days!

If she gets a good blood gas tomorrow morning, they will then put her on a setting on her vent which will allow for her pressure to fluctuate based on her needs, rather than a steady pressure all the time. It will peak at 24, but if she needs as little as 18, it will only give her 18. If she can handle this, then she may ready to extubate (have her breathing tube removed).

Amelia is able to regulate her own body temperature and her primary nurse was contemplating putting her in a big girl bed today. However, it takes more calories to be in an open air bed because she can't depend on the heat of the isolette to help her when she gets chilly. These are calories that she needs to be using to grow bigger. They are bumping her up to 27 calories (and she is at 29mL) per feeding and perhaps in a couple days if she is gaining weight, they will finally move her to the new bed.

She has been keeping her eyes open for longer stretches at a time and is really taking in the scenery. I taped a picture of me on the side of her isolette and a picture of Todd to the top of it, so that if she is laying on her side or on her back, she can look at our faces.

I got to hold her today and give her a bath. The bathing process is just a little sponge bath with cotton gauze dipped in a bowl of warm water and a bit of Baby Magic. Then I got to brush her hair with a little plastic brush, change her diaper and dress in her in a fresh outfit. We ended our night with a bedtime story of one of her favorite books, The Pokey Little Puppy. Right before I left I decided she looked a bit cold and put some socks on her feet. They are designed to be ankle socks for newborns, but they pulled all the way up under her knees. They looked like tube socks. Amelia still weighs 3 lbs. 6 oz. at her weigh in tonight.