Taylor is now 1200 grams which is a little more than 2lbs 10oz. She's slowly gaining weight, and the doctor says she right on track. This whole metric thing really confuses a simple mind like me but she gains about 20 grams a day which is about .7 oz. Anyway she should be 2lbs 11oz tomorrow. Of course that's confusing to me too because she gets weighed for tomorrow around midnight tonight. So I go to bed tonight knowing tomorrow's weight. I wish I knew what else would happen tomorrow as well. Confused yet... welcome to my world.
The CPAP battle continues. Yesterday, our doctor told Michelle that they would start weening Taylor from the CPAP this week. Yeah!!!! He then came back later and heard some more crackling in Taylor's lungs and said that it looks like she still needs her CPAP. He heard a little more today and confirmed that they will NOT be weening her anytime soon. Boo... She has been on/off oxygen more today. Its position, its the CPAP, and its her lungs growing. Hopefully next week. It would be really nice to hit 32 weeks with no CPAP. No medical reason that I know of, just parental relief.
Taylor's stomach is still pretty big. The doctor is not real concerned about it, but would like to see it smaller. Babies on CPAP get a lot of air in the stomach. The nurses continue to pull air out very often (sometimes every 2 hours) to help. The doc did say that its a bit of a problem with the CPAP as well. A big stomach puts pressure on the lungs as far as room goes, and sometimes they have to bump the CPAP up so the lungs can compete with the stomach. Sounds like a spiral we hope to avoid. On the plus side, Taylor seems to be impressing everybody with her pooping ability. She doesn't poop all the time but once she gets going.. look out. "4 diapers in a row!", Saturdays' nurse proclaimed. Last night when I was holding her she kept going and going. I was getting kind of nervous and started feeling phantom drops on my side. Turns out I had a reason to be worried. Our nurse said that the diaper was saturated. When we put her up she went through another one. He said she was graduating to a bigger diaper because he didn't think the diapers she was on could contain her anymore. I'm so proud of my little girl, although she does look a little weird with this big diaper on now (its way too big for her little body). Of course, I am no longer necessarily jumping at the opportunity to change her diaper.
Since we are on such a lovely topic, I have to say that I wish she would keep things only coming out one way. Unfortunately, she keeps burping up as well. Not a big deal for a normal baby, but for a baby on CPAP its horrible. Last night when I was holding her, she all of sudden just started kicking and punching and flailing about. I couldn't figure what I said or did (I was just sitting there I swear). It was horrible! I could see she was really struggling with getting a breath and then all of sudden stuff just started coming out her mouth and CPAP. I ripped the CPAP off and just let the alarms go off. It was horrible.
She did it again in the middle of the night and they had to replace everything. Because of that, and just the general oxygen up/down incidents throughout the night, and some problems with monitor leads, it was a long night. For the most part anymore, I try to sleep. When an alarm goes off, I almost always wake up, but I quickly try to figure out what the alarm is and usually don't get up anymore. If I get up, I'm not getting back to sleep anytime soon. It depends on the nurse as well. Last night we had one of our favorites so I wasn't as concerned. I was mad though at myself when I heard she spit up again. I heard the sat alarms go off, but it had been going off a lot, so just kind of ignored it. Then the brady alarm went off and people were in here pretty quickly. I just kind of lied there listening and then I learned that she had spit up and I got mad at myself. On top of those alarms, one of the nurses that had come in to help hit the emergency button instead of the pause button. And that brought a lot of people in quickly. She was quite embarrassed. Anyway, I wish I would have responded faster now as it might have saved Taylor some grief. I guess I'll probably be back in that jumping out of bed mode again for a while now.
Sleep is not something that is easy to do anymore. Its seems kind of screwed up to me. Most people have a child and bring them home and then can't get any sleep. We are going to be bringing Taylor home and sleep better than we have in a very long time. Nights at the hospital are not conducive to sleep. Michelle can't get relief anywhere because she can't go more than 4-5 hours between pumping. I can't seem to get relief at home because of my stupid cat. Grey Kitty (I didn't name her - she came as part of the package when I married) seems to be missing me a lot. She has to (and I mean has to) sleep on me. Its driving me nuts. I am not the type that likes animals laying on me. I wake up and "politely" re-locate her to the headboard, to the end of the bed, to the floor, to the hallway if my throw is good.. She waits for me to fall back asleep and then plops right back on me. One time (and I'm not joking) I was laying on my side and the cat was like sleep hanging on me. Argh! Anyway, its time for her to start sleeping with the kids (who pretty much get all the animals we don't want). Michelle and myself have also been calling each other at night after kangaroo care to tell each other how it went and to say good night. Unfortunately, I think we are going to have stop doing that because its part of the problem as well. Most nights its almost midnight before you can make a call and some nights like Saturday night are worst (1:30 in the morning). Anyway, its probably more important for us to both get more sleep.
Michelle is doing good. I have heard that I should never mention her weight (or pretty much any female's weight) publicly again so I won't. She's been eating good and has been getting outside some so should be regaining some muscle strength soon. She was able to do the feet on one of the horses this weekend which was much needed for both the horse and her I think, although Michelle was still sore yesterday from it. I suspect that she will back on top of her horse before the end of the week. I can't really speak for her, but overall I think (besides having to put up with me) she's doing good. She is getting excited about Taylor now. That may sound a little strange to some people, but just realize that there were only about 2 weeks in this pregnancy that Michelle felt good about it. Up until about 18 weeks, she was just so worried something would happen again like our last one. She started feeling good and then BAM! this whole thing started. So its nice to see her excited and finally getting around to get some baby things that we need.
Mary stayed up at the hospital Friday and Saturday through the days, and my mom yesterday. I worked from home Friday and came back that night, Michelle came back Saturday night, and I started over again last night. It was nice to get a few things done on Saturday and Sunday. We got one of our fences up and I got the arena finished enough so that the gutter guy can come back and finish the last gutter. We have more to do before its starts pouring non-stop but at least we've made some progress.
You would think I would have been in a great mood this weekend. I was home Saturday day through Sunday night, the Beavers creamed the Cougs, Taylor had a great weekend, and at least in the days I was with Michelle and the kids. Unfortunately, and especially for Michelle, that wasn't the case. I don't know why, I'm just in a down mood lately. I should be getting excited because we are probably 5 weeks away from it being over. But I'm not. Another 5 weeks. It just seems like forever still. I know I haven't been getting enough sleep. Also the back and forth on days like Friday (come home in the morning, try to work, go back at night) is just too much on me even if I'm around Michelle and the kids. I have really been missing and needing Michelle lately. It was so rough watching what she went through at the hospital, and I'm so happy to see her out. I just want to spend my days and nights with her and get back to life together with her and the kids. Unfortunately its a still a ways out and its driving me nuts. It was to the point this weekend where I didn't want to go back to the hospital or have her go back even though Taylor needed us. Its so selfish of me and so childish. Its also stupid because once I got to the hospital and Taylor looked at me I was suddenly in a much better mood. But that's my life. I wish it were different, but I'm only human.
I just wish I had a time-out bottle. One 24 hour time-out, with me and Michelle and the kids laying around on some warm beach soaking up the sun. Man that would be nice.
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