35 Week - "Preemie Spell"

To our followers - my sincerest apologies on the delayed update/post! It was a rough week and slow to get back to normal, but I'm so pleased to report that we're back to normal (well, NICU normal)!

Cora's "Preemie Spell" included treatment for infection (though her cultures were negative). This treatment meant that she had an IV placed, feeds stopped and antibiotics administered for 48 hours. Since respiratory reserve is often the first to go when a baby gets sick, she was put back on the nasal cannula too. Since her feeds stopped, even though it was  for a short while, we lost a lot of ground in terms of training to eat by mouth and in weight gain.

Now that she's back up to full feeds, and they are adding back-in the Human Milk Fortifier, I'm hoping that she gets back on track for her weight gain. She came off the cannula rather quickly too! So, her weight last night was 1632 grams or almost 3lb 10oz. After the third night of weight loss, hopefully 3oz is the most, overall loss that she'll have... Fingers crossed for tonight's weigh-in! At least she pooped on her own yesterday, I hear it was a major blow-out!? :)

"Preemie Spell" was coined by the TCN Attending physician, whom we met in our Family Meeting on Friday, since there was no specific "sickness" identified. This Family Meeting was different than our last, thank goodness! Cora has come so far! This time we discussed getting her home... HOME. It still feels so surreal. It's really all I think about and all that I want, but I'm not sure I'm ready!? It still feels like it's far away, because there is no date. We could bring her home in a couple weeks or it could take 4-5 more weeks?! It's all dependent on Cora's progress, primarily in regards to her feedings. Nevertheless, the checklist of items to get her home has started - I gave her a bath today!