Another Weekend

The neurosurgeon follow up went well. He snipped the ends of her stitches so they will come out faster, but they could take another month to completely dissolve. Our next follow up with him will be around Thanksgiving. They will do an mri to make sure the shunt is still working as it should.

The next appointment is Monday evening. This one is a physical therapist from the early intervention program.

Tummy time today was impressive. She can push up and lift her head, looking around. She’s started moving her arms more, like she knows she needs to use them to crawl. She can kick off very well against our hands and propel herself across the mat with just her feet. When I’m working, I keep her loosely strapped on my chest so she can build her arms up.

We bumped her volume up to 90 mls tonight. She’s been finishing 80 pretty consistently, and she’s been waking herself up about half an hour before feeding. We think she’s ready for a little more. This will make mixing up her milk easier, since the recipe is in units of 90 mls. She gets a protein fortifier for extra calories and protein (shocker) and rice cereal for her acid reflux. The rice thickens the milk a little, so it stays down easier.

Hopefully the combination of tonight’s bath, which she thoroughly enjoyed, and a little extra milk will help her to sleep better tonight than she did last night. It’s now about 9pm, and I was awake from midnight to 2am, and from 4am until now. There was a 45 minute nap in there around 3. We all need sleep! 

There’s a NICU grad in my house!

At 1:09, yesterday afternoon, Little Miss Minion left the hospital! We got her car seat fitting from physical therapy, practiced once each, Mr Minion went down to the garage with PT and got the base checked out while I fed her. After they disconnected her from the monitors, Mr Minion held her for a while while we waited for official discharge orders. At one point, he laughed and walked her to the edges of the room, something that wouldn’t have been possible while she was connected to the monitors. When we traded, I turned slowly in a circle, something that would have resulted in tangled cords.

We stopped and got McDonald’s for lunch, delighting in the current Minions promotion they are running. She had fallen asleep in her car seat and looked too comfortable to wake with 15 minutes left before her next feeding, so she slept in the car seat while we ate.

She slept in our arms for the rest of the day and most of the night. Mr Minion fed her each time while I worked on laundry, cooking dinner for perhaps the fourth time in 84 days, and trying to get some more of her stuff put away. We gave her a wipe down bath before her 8pm feeding, a nice massage, and changed her clothes.

Last night was probably a rough night for her. Being out of the NICU, away from the light, the alarms, the smells, the confident hands of our nurses. Every time we put her down, whether it was in her cradle, her crib, her bouncer, or her pack and play, she cried. She was only comfortable in our arms. She seemed calmer around her 5 am feeding, so I grabbed her velcro swaddle blanket and fastened her arms down, turned on Pandora, and waited. Silence.

So we have determined that she likes piano music, being swaddled, and hanging out with us. She does not like change (unsurprising for any baby, especially a Preemie), the guy who does the Pandora commercials, or having her arms free when she sleeps.

The plan for today: Little Miss Minion eats every 3 hours. Between feedings today, Mr Minion and I need to take showers, one of us needs to go grocery shopping for a few things, and we need to keep working on the house back together. Oh, and snuggling Miss Minion whenever she wants it. She’s earned it.