Saturday, October 4, 2008

Making Some Progress

This has been a pretty good week for Little Suzie. She actually took her first full bottle at the beginning of the week! Since then, she will finish about half of the bottles we offer her. Otherwise she will usually drink about 2/3 of the bottle which is pretty good for her! Much better than last week so we are grateful. They are now offering her a bottle every other feeding, which is four times a day, assuming she is awake enough. She is doing a much better job pacing herself so we hardly have to cue her to breathe anymore. What improvement! We do still have to turn her oxygen way up when she eats or she will desaturate a lot.

Regarding her oxygen, she is now on the lowest amount of flow that she can be on, with her oxygen around 30-40%. It's a small catheter that only goes in one nostril. We are still very aware that she might come home on oxygen, but she is making small steps in the right direction.

She is beginning to be awake for longer periods of time throughout the day, which is very fun for us. Sometimes she is pretty fussy, but other times she is just wide awake and content and looking all around. She smiles all the time especially when we sing to her. She loves to be held so I spend most of the time that I am there holding her in my arms and rocking her.

Her shunt is still working very well and a recent ultrasound shows that her ventricles have dramatically decreased in size! She now is just under 6 pounds and over 19 inches long! I can hardly believe she is the same baby. It is getting harder and harder for us to leave her each night. Everything is coming together in her nursery here at home. We are praying that the Lord would allow her to come home some time this month.

Please continue to pray for her progress and for us to continue to depend on the Lord for everything. We have so much to praise God for.

5 comments:

Holly said...

Hi Guys!! Just know that we continue to pray for you 3 each and every day. Hang in there with the bottles...we can completely sympathize. Addison is not taking her bottles all that well, either. But we are just thankful she is at least taking part of them. Our girls will get it soon, hopefully, and they'll be home in no time. I think of you often!!

Oldest Daughter said...

I am glad she is making such progress! I continue to pray for ya'll

Karyn Hughes said...

Such good news! She really is making progress, I will keep praying for her and for you guys and that she will come home soon!

Unknown said...

Yay, Suzie! Keep up the good work!

Cherie said...

What a little cutie she is! We are rejoicing with you. We pray you will be bringing her home soon!