Pucker up, Buttercup...

Whew, I'm tired...

Do you mind? This is a private moment between me and my paci...

Kiss me, you fool...

Amelia is still riding the NC this evening. Saturday night was a little tough, but Sunday morning she really gave the nurses a hard time; needing to boost her FI02 up to 80%. The attending doctor threatened to put her back on CPAP if she got to 100%, instead of going up on the pressure of the NC. She's been back down in the 60-65% range for most of the day after that, though. Sitting with her here tonight, she is again desatting a lot and hanging in the 70% range, and the nurse is being very patient with her. She is nearing her feeding, and she's had consistent trouble at the end of her feeds keeping up her sats. So I'm hopefull that after about 20 minutes of digesting, she'll quiet down. None of them want to see her back on CPAP. She's in her favorite position - tummied and boppied. The beeping is driving me crazy!

She was 9lbs 12ozs again tonight, having lost an oz then gaining it back in the last 48hrs. They also measured her, and she grew a half centimeter during the week - which is about 1/5 of an inch... she is now just shy of 21inches.

They put her OG-tube through a nostril during the morning, also, so that the OT can work on bottles with her tomorrow without having anything else in the mouth. But if her FI02s are high, then they will have to skip the OT and PT tomorrow.

She finally got a bath tonight after about 5 days of uncleanliness, and she had some serious dandruff going on. We got most of it, but we'll need to work it out over the next few days.. poor girl can't keep her scalp clean with that CPAP headgear! And she spit up after her 5pm feed for the third day in a row - a few CCs of food - so her bed got fully changed, also.

She's really sucking hard on her pacifier, as you can see, butI stopped it because while she was doing it, she was also desatting quite a bit... I guess she just can't chew gum and walk at the same time yet. Xina and I have also been trying to get Amelia to use her hands more, as you can see from the video. Xina had her batting at a rattle on her own today, and she's now started to grip the pacifier on her own... which is the first thing not a finger she's squeezed. It sure will be nice when she learns to keep that in her mouth without me holding it there... 30 minutes of helping her suck on it is quite tiring, I assure you.

Our hope is that she makes it through tomorrow. Often, a baby will tire out after a few days, and need to revert to the CPAP. She is definitely needing higher FI02 than on Friday evening and Saturday during the ND game; but maybe that game and the NU game took too much breath away from her... I know they did me. We hope that if she makes it through Monday, then she will adapted enough that she can continue on the NC. She's so much happier right now than she was on the CPAP, it'll break my heart if she goes back... I'm not sure I can argue enough to keep her on it. But we hope it won't come to that.

We wish you all well.