34 Weeks Gestation

Caitlyn is doing great! Today, they moved her from a high-flow nasal cannula to a regular cannula, which means there is less air pressure and less humidity in the oxygen. She will probably come home on this nasal cannula, along with monitors to let us know that she is fine.

She is up to 3 pounds, 13 ounces!!! And she no longer needs extra vitamins added to her feedings.

Here she is in her first hawkeye "outfit":

A view from the room:

Look what the nurses did!:

And of course, Brian on Ragbrai. Can you tell which one is him?

I'm wearing clothes!

This is Caitlyn's 1st time wearing clothes! They took the monitor off her that allows her to control how much heat the isolette provides for her, and now they are going to see how well she can control her own temperature. The isolette is still set for a certain temperature (just like our homes are), but if she gets cold, the machine won't turn the temp up, and if she gets warm, it won't turn the temp down. Instead, she will have to do that herself. So far, she's doing a great job!

Caitlyn is 3 pounds, 4.5 ounces today! The docs are a little concerned with her red blood cell count. They are going to do something called a retic count to see if her bone marrow is producing enough of these cells.

Three Pounds!

Caitlyn is 6 weeks old and hit 3 pounds today! She has about doubled her size since she was born. Her feedings have increased to 28 cc's every 3 hours, and she is tolerating it well. Before she can come home, it is required that she is up to full feedings- which is about 70-80 cc's every 3 hours. She's getting closer!

The boys continue to amaze us every day. I woke up one morning to find that Aidan had started to build a log cabin- by following the directions in his Lincoln Logs kit. He can build amazing things with his Lego's too, all by himself.

The nightly ritual of the mohawks...

5 Weeks Old

Caitlyn turned 5 weeks old this week, and a lot has happened. One of her cultures did end up coming back positive for C Dif, a bacteria that will cause her to be on precautions for the rest of her stay. It's not serious, and it's actually a bacteria that most of us carry around all the time. It's one that can very easily be picked up at hospitals, and they put her on precautions so it doesn't spread to the other babies. The good news is that they don't think she is allergic to milk!

She had another blood transfusion since our last post, which again, is typical for extremely low birth weight babies like Caitlyn. She had a vision test, which came back normal. She is up to 26cc of milk every 3 hours, and she now weighs 2 lbs, 13.5 ounces!

Brian got to hold her for the first time yesterday. Here are a couple pics of the moment:

One Month Old!

Caitlyn turned one month old this week! The time has really gone by quickly. She is now 2 pounds, 5.5 ounces and 15.5 inches long. She is starting to fill out and getting fat on her little bones. They had to increase her oxygen pressure to 1.5 liters (up from 1 liter), which is common among little ones and may be related to the possible infection. Her rate of oxygen has increased as well, up to 40-50%, when it used to be at only 25-30% (room air is 21% oxygen). It tends to go up this high when she is on her back. Today, they could only have her on her back for 15 minutes at a time, the rest of the time she was on her tummy. She started milk yesterday, this time with no fortifier, and she is up to 20cc. She's on day 6 of 7 for antibiotics.

Weekend Review

We were awoken Sunday morning at 6am because the nurse in the NICU called to inform us that Caitlyn had significant amounts of blood in her diaper overnight. They sent her blood, urine and spinal fluid in for cultures- looking for both viral and bacterial infections. They put Caitlyn on precautions, which meant that anyone going in and out of her room had to fully gown, mask, and glove up before entering. They also stopped all milk and put her on IV fluids with a triple dose of antibiotics. She had no signs of infection, not even a fever, so I was a little sceptical. They mentioned it could also be a reaction to the milk fortifier that they started her on a week ago, which made me immediately think that it is probably an allergy to cow's milk, just like Aidan has. Today we found out that nothing has grown in her urine or blood cultures, and her doctor believes that the cause of her bleeding is probably a food allergy, just like I thought. Caitlyn's doctor has asked me to stop eating dairy products for the remainder of the time that I want to breastfeed. I am so glad that she is not sick. But no dairy and no meat...what am I going to eat?
Caitlyn turns 1 month old tomorrow, so we'll post some new stats then. Here's a picture of her with no feeding tube, so you can see her little mouth:

Happy 4th!

We went to the Jazz Fest in Iowa City for the 4th and stayed for the fireworks. The boys had a blast catching fireflies.











And of course, we went to see Caitlyn that night.