The marathon continues. As new and crazy as everything started when Sarah went into the hospital and then when Elora was born, the feeling now is much more about celebrating incremental improvements, finding new routines and a having a desire for things to be "normal". I'm not exactly sure what normal looks like since we've never done "normal life" with a baby at home, but I'm anxious to figure that out. We get asked quite often when Elora will get to come home. At this point, we are still waiting for her to be weaned completely off of breathing support and to also start taking all of her feedings by mouth. Although we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the daily grind is starting to feel really long. It's like when you take a long road trip...the last hour before you get home always seems the longest. I think that is where we are at. Ready to be done with the hospital. Ready to just be home and do normal new baby things. But right now, it seems like we will never get there. I guess that will make the finish line all the sweeter.
Elora had a good week. Today she hit 6 pounds! She looks like a normal newborn at this point, which is really fun. She has chubby cheeks and all. We got good news as well on a couple of tests. First, on Mondays she has eye exams. The good news is that they saw some improvement in her eyes this week. She is still at Stage 2 in both eyes with the ROP, but we're hoping that this improvement will continue and that her eyes will self correct. Time will tell. Last week she also had another head exam. Things looked stable there as well. We aren't seeing any obvious physical signs of damage from her brain bleed when she was first born, but here again, time will tell. We're very hopeful though. Regarding her breathing, the pressure of air in her canula was reduced to 1/8 liter. I'm not sure how low they go, but we aren't too far off being weaned off of respiratory support altogether. That will be an exciting and scary day I think. For feeding, they continue to slowly increase the amount of milk she is taking. At think point, I'd say that she is probably taking 40% by bottle. Like I mentioned before, she'll need to be at 100% before she can go home.
We also found out this past week that Elora has a hernia. Evidently this is fairly typical in preemies - more so in boys, but takes place in girls too. The doctors don't seem too alarmed, but it will require a routine surgery to correct. At this point, they are monitoring the hernia. They want to put off doing the surgery so she can continue to grow and strengthen as much as possible, but before it would grow or become more serious. So, we're keeping watch and are anticipating that when it is time, it will go rather quickly. Also this week, as she has been weaned down from her respiratory support and has taken more feedings by bottle, that combination has produced a few pretty significant spells where she forgets to breathe. She is monitored so we can address it quickly if need be, but honestly, that freaks Sarah and me out thinking about what if that happens when she is home. I know we'll be equipped to handle, but it's still a little nerve wracking. Hopefully, that will be worked out before she comes home.
All in all, things are very positive and we are just really looking forward to the day when our commute is just between work and home and when our biggest concern is whether Elora likes our cat Jojo or not.
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