Getting There

This is Katelyn at 4 days old. She weighed 1lb 7oz.

Look who is getting bigger finally. Mini is now 4lbs 8oz. She is still having apnea episodes but they are getting further apart so that is a good sign. She is eating lots more now and sleeping longer during the night. She loves bath time and  to be talked to. One of her nurses teases that Katelyn will call out for attention and when the nurse goes in her room to check on her it's like Katie is just saying hi. She is so funny she grins when you talk to her. She had a pretty good week lots of time to rest after the previous week full of tests. Katie will have blood work done on Tuesday to check her blood count and Wednesday is her eye exam. We are hoping for good reports from both tests. Her last hematocrit blood work showed her red blood count was up from 28 to 31. We want her count to be closer to 40. She has been on an iron supplement for a longtime and will likely have to continue with that until her pediatrician says otherwise. Katelyn has been on 21-24% oxygen this week. Regular room air is 20-22% so she is improving having a better blood count is helpful too. If her eye exam shows fully mature eyes she will  be put on 100% oxygen which is what she'll come home with. Hopefully switching her oxygen will help with her apnea spells. When Katie is discharged from the NICU she will see her pediatrician regularly as well as some specialists up at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. She will see a cardiologist to check the small heart defects to make sure they are self resolving. She will get an ultrasound on her spinal cord to make sure she doesn't have a tethered spinal cord which can cause spina bifida an improper closing of the neural tube during fetal development. This is just a precaution to rule out any defects. Katie will also see a neurologist to check on the area in her MRI that showed some scarring. It is likely that she will have some form of cerebral palsy we just don't know to what extent. Katie will also see different types of therapists to help her in her development. It will be a long road but one we are willing to take as long as we have to.

Katelyn is so well taken care of at Intermountain Medical Center. They have such a good NICU staff. One of my favorite things is the pictures we get. There are several digital cameras in the unit. When parents can't be there to see their babies the nurses take pictures for them, put them on a disc and the parents can take the disc home and save the pictures. They are loaded up every so often and when I got Katie's disc yesterday it had 157 photos on it. Here are a few of my favorites edited using the online editing program picnik.com, it's so cool.

Look at that beautiful smile!!

Okay all you crafty ladies, I need ideas for thank you gifts for our primary care nurses. They have been so good with Katie I want to get them something to show how much we love them. Any simple suggestions?