11.30.10

First of all - Happy 2 week birthday baby girl!

It's been a busy day today. We got a call at 6:00 a.m. (when NICU flashes on your phone at 6 a.m, that'll freak you out) saying that they needed to put her back on the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure). Translation - she takes every breath by herself, but a steady flow of air comes into her airway under pressure, even when she exhales, holds the air sacs open and keeps them from collapsing after each breath. She was on the CPAP right when she was born, then went off of it, then back on a couple days later, and has been off of it for about a week. But, today, back on she went. The reasoning - her chest X-ray came back even hazier than yesterday's, and her CO2 level was elevated. The low-flow oxygen they had her on was making it hard for her to exhale the CO2 out. This could all have been being caused by the fact that she wasn't able to sleep on her belly (which I've mentioned before). On a bright note (I guess), they had to take the IV out of her foot because it was old and was leaking, and had to put it in her arm, so she can now lay on her belly!! She is much happier, I can tell!! Since I have been here they have turned down the CPAP to 30% though, and her monitor keeps dinging that even that's too high, so we shall see how things turn out with that. I was bummed that we had to go back to this, but I know that I would prefer to have her spend her energy getting bigger and stronger, not spending it trying to breath if there is a way they can help her out with that.
She doesn't look as puffy to me today, so that's a good thing. And she's doing okay with her feedings. She had about half of her 7:30 feeding left in residual at her 10:30 feeding, so they gave her that back and then just gave her half of a feeding. But at the 1:30 feeding, she had digested it all, so they went back to her full feeding (7 cc's).
When I arrived to hold her for her 1:30 feeding they had just gotten done taking a bunch of labs and poking and proding her, so the nurse kind of hinted that she didn't know if getting her out and holding her would be a good idea. This bummed me out, but Matt and I have said all along that it's what's best for Harper, so the second she started hinting at that, I immediately told her I agreed and that we were not going to be selfish about holding her. She's had a stressful morning, so let her rest.
Hopefully, she can have a bit more peaceful of an evening.