Wonderful checkups today!!!

Starting to love her bumbo, giving daddy a big smile off to the side! She is still a little small for it so we have a small blanket tucked in behind her to 'fill in the extra space'! The bumbo is now a part of our daily, evening, play time!

Dylan checking out out his little sister and touching her 'tickley toes' as he calls them and even giving her a nice kiss!

Today was a very busy day for Danielle. She had a few follow-up appointments at the University.

Danielle has been battling a buggery nose for the past few days. The other day we actually turned her oxygen up to .75 because we were thinking that her nose was so plugged, the suction machine was not even getting it all so the oxygen was probably not all getting to her either. They told us we could turn up the oxygen if needed when she had a cold so we did for 24 hours or so. She has been pulling out her canula in the night so we have been thinking over the past few weeks that she probably is getting close to no more oxygen. We still have her on the monitor at night and it has never gone off even with the oxygen out of her nose during the night. So today I was going to request that we take her off the oxygen a few hours before the appt to see how she would do for a long period of time. Well then after this buggery nose set in and has not gone away and has now caused a cough we decided that we would not request this long room air test.

So Danielle's first appointment was with the High Risk followup and our Neonatologist. The appointment went very well. Danielle is now 13 pounds!!! This is very exciting, we had a feeling but today it was confirmed. Also she is now on the growth chart for her corrected age. This is amazing and SUCH wonderful news. Not just at the bottom of the chart but fully on the chart! This is going by her age of 2 1/2 months based on her due date. They will use her corrected age until she is 2. Then for her Developmental Testing she did SO good. She is getting very close to rolling over and today she almost did it for her evaluation. She is also scooting backwards when on her tummy and she showed those skills too. At the very beginning of the appointment they took Danielle completely off her oxygen as they do every time, hooked her up to the oximeter to see how long she will go before her sats drop. During this time I give her a bottle so they can see how she saturates during feeding, then they play with her for the evaluation etc so they see how she does on her tummy and during play time. Well we are VERY proud to say that Danielle was completely off oxygen for 50 minutes today and did not drop her sats below 92%, this was SO exciting. At one point when I was feeding her for the second time, she at that point had been off just over 1/2 hour, I lookd over at the oximeter and saw that she was sating 100%, I asked the ARNP, 'did you put Danielle back on her oxygen' she said 'no', she too looked over and said, 'wow, that is great, during a feeding and buggery nose, I am pretty sure she is close to ready, this is remarkable'!!! The only reason they put her back on the oxygen is because the appointment was over! So the doctor came in and was very very excited and happy with Danielle and how she did without any oxygen support. Realistically they could have taken her completely off today for good but with it being winter and being she has not had the 4 hour room air test they would like to do that 6 weeks from now, and if she does great then, then NO MORE OXYGEN!! So after today's appointment they lowered her down to .25 liter for her oxygen. This is the absolute lowest they would go and they don't usually go this low at all, Dylan was never on this low of a setting. This is just wonderful news.

So, then came the Eye exam with the Pediatric Opthamologist, the same doctor that Dylan sees as well. Again, another wonderful checkup! Danielle's eyes look great, I asked if the ROP was still 'regressing/getting better'. He said 'better than regressing, I don't see much there at all from what was there before'. Wonderful, wonderful news. He said what was there before is virtually gone now! Of course as with Dylan there are still risks and we do not ever take anything for granted but as of now we do not have anything currently to worry about unless a new issue were to arise! Danielle doesn't need another eye exam for 6 months!!!!!!!! Very, very exciting news also! We are hoping our appointments are getting a little more spread out. She is still getting her monthyl RSV preventative, Synegis, in our home with the in home nurse, next week she gets her second dose of the flu shot but we don't go back to IC until 6 weeks from now for High Risk Clinic, then in May for Neurosurgery and MRI, and July for eye exam. She will go down for a hearing screen sometime within the next month when they call us and make the appt. So we are very, very happy.

We are very proud of our precious little princess. Needless to say this evening she is pooped out. She was totally out of her routine today, didn't eat much, had a bath tonight and her and daddy fell asleep, before half time of the football game tonight, on the couch together! We have so many wonderful things to be thankful for and we pray that 2009 continues on this pace! The lord has blessed our family and our children. We had a couple very encouraging reports today and we will continue to Believe in our little girl and keep encouraging her to Believe in herself!~