New stuff...

Well, yesterday was not a good day for our little munckin. She was very lethargic and not acting like herself. She was also having a lot of problems keeping her oxygen levels up while she was eating. They did a bunch of blood work to make sure she didn't have an infection, which thankfully all came back normal. We have considered the idea that she may have acid reflux which is very common in premature babies, but they do not test them for it at her age. Long story short, through the night she continued to have problems with her feedings, so they put the NG tube back in her nose to feed her and let her rest. I was able to have a long talk with the doctor today, and what we came up with was this.....They removed her NG tube a couple of days ago, so she has been taking everything by mouth since then. They were testing her, they wanted to make sure she could handle it before she came home. Well, her little episodes we believe were caused by complete exhausion. So, since last night, she is going back to taking every-other feed by mouth and the rest go into her NG tube. That way, she is able to "rest" and still get the nutrition she needs to continue to gain weight and get stronger!!! We will do this for at least a few days, then try her with taking everything by mouth again and see how she does. I am so grateful that they did "test" her while she was there and not wait until she was home. Technically, she is still only 33 weeks old...they normally don't even give babies that young a bottle at all, so she is still doing better than expected, she just was letting us know that she was not quite ready to come home. So, we had a little bit of a set back, but nothing unexpected or conserning at this time. She is up to 5lbs 6oz today!!!!!! We fed her on two separate occasions today and she did great. She just needs reminding that she needs to take breaks and not suck the bottle until she's blue in the face :-) She will learn, with time and maturity she will have it down in no time!!!! Please continue to pray for her while she continues to get stronger and closer to being able to be home with us!!!!