Friday, July 18, 2008

3 weeks old today...







Little miss Danielle is 3 weeks old today, and my oh my has time gone by. It seems like the days, surprisingly enough go by fast, and before we know it, it is the weekend and she is one week older! She is doing great on CPAP and only requiring between 24-34% oxygen. This is a minimal amt for her. They have a chest x-ray scheduled for tomorrow morning and if it is good then they will possibly lower her CPAP rate down to 4 from where it is now at 5. Then if she does good at this setting for the weekend they will possibly consider taking her off CPAP and on to just regular oxygen thru a nasal canula on Monday. This is just amazing that they are considering this. We of course realize a lot can change between now and then but for them to be thinking this is just so positive.

She is getting just over 8ml's of breast milk every 3 hours and tolerating her feeds well. Today they started to add fortifier to her milk so she is getting more calories than the breast milk alone has. This is standard protocol and they will over time, gradually increase the amount of fortifier she is getting as well.

They are still trying to figure out the sodium, amount of fluid she needs, kidney issue. Now they are thinking her body is producing an increased amount of this SIADH (?) or diuretic hormone that reacts to water in the body. So today they stopped the dopamine and have lowered her overall fluid amount back down to within a normal range and will monitor this over 12/24 hours. This is confusing to me because they are thinking something new frequently. What we hope is that without the dopamine she will still pee good amounts despite the lower total body fluid amount and her potassium and sodium levels will stay within the 'normal' range.

We are just so thankful that we have our daughter here with us. She is truly a blessing from God as all children are. We are very lucky to have her for our daughter! We pray for a steady weekend.~
Here are some pics from her room, the 'whole' room view!

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