January 31, 2012

This morning when I called the NICU to see how Harli's night went I got a great report.  She only had three episodes and only one of those episodes required stimulation.

When Blair talked with Harli's nurse this morning she filled her in on the amount of episodes she had over night.  Harli also had a couple of bowel movement throughout the night which are always a great sign. When the doctor and nurse practitioners made their rounds today they were very satisfied with the progress Harli is making.  The doctor told Blair that they were going to raise Harli's feedings from 5cc's to 8cc's because she was tolerating them nicely.  They are then planning on raising her feeding to 10cc's tomorrow, and then Friday they will start adding extra calories in Blair's milk.  They add the extra calories in the milk so they do not have to keep doubling the amount of milk, but Harli can still get the amount of calories needed to grow.

Blair was able to kangaroo Harli for two and a half hours.  The nurse mentioned that Harli's vital signs were perfect during her kangaroo session, which always makes us feel good.  Harli had a few bowel movements throughout the day, which is a good sign the intestines are working properly.  The more milk they are giving her the more bowel movements she is able to have, we continue to pray that her intestines continue to heal properly.

Harli is still on four liters on the vapotherm machine with twenty-four to twenty-eight percent oxygen.  The doctor came by tonight and told us that he is not concerned about her still being on the vapotherm machine, but he wants to hopefully get Harli off the liquids this weekend into the first part of next week.  Once she is off the liquids and completely on milk they will remove her pick-line to help avoid any infections.  The doctor mentioned that one reason he still feels that Harli is having her episodes is because of positioning.  He said her neck muscles are not strong enough to hold her chin up and occasionally she puts her chin down and blocks off her airway. He said hopefully she will continue to grow on the milk and then her breathing issues will hopefully be dissolved.

Tonight I was able to take Blair out for a nice dinner for our anniversary.  This is the first time to date that both of us actually went somewhere together other than the Ronald McDonald house.  It was nice to get a chance to be the two of us away from everything even though it was only an hour and a half.  We were able to enjoy ourselves at dinner with no interruptions.

We got back into Harli's room and were able to help with care at eight.  Harli had another bowel movement and I was not so lucky to get out of this one.  I did try, but between our nurse and Blair there was no choice.  Harli has once again gained a little bit of weight.  She weighed 1,060 grams or 2.5 lbs, we will take every ounce we can get. Harli finished the day with a total of four episodes, two of those episodes did require stem.

This is what our nurse made us last night for our anniversary.  We thought it was AWESOME!