Guarded optimism

And now for some good news … at our care conference (meeting with the doctor) this afternoon, the doctor said he expects Veronica to be coming home within the next two weeks. (That’s what I’ve been saying too.) So while it will suddenly become much more complicated to have one baby in the hospital and one at home, we’ll finally have one baby at home. 

Veronica pulled her feeding tube out (again) this morning. Because her face was a little irritated from the tape, her nurse and I decided to leave it out and see how long she could go today eating by mouth. She did three nursing or nursing/bottle combination feedings in a row, but we put the tube back in before the 3:00 feeding this afternoon, just in case. Three in a row is her record, so that’s very exciting. 

Because her tube was out, they were able to do her hearing screen this morning as well. She passed in both ears, so one less thing to worry about. She has what may be her last eye exam (for now) tomorrow. So far neither she nor Colin have shown any signs of ROP (retinopathy of prematurity — a potentially serious eye disorder preemies are prone toward), thank goodness. 

Also in the good news front, Colin gained an ounce last night, despite the infection and having to get the IV inserted. He is now up to a whopping 2 pounds 9 ounces. It would be fantastic if he can continue to grow throughout this little setback. And he might, since he doesn’t seem to be getting as worked up about things these days. When he gets upset it is more of a normal baby upset, not a super Colin-sized upset like he used to have. 

They also have been able to keep Colin’s oxygen levels at only slightly higher levels than he was at before yesterday. He is still having some incidents where is oxygen saturation levels drop, but not as many as yesterday. So either the antibiotic is working remarkably quickly, or something else was causing the problem. But for the moment, we’ll take whatever encouragement we can. 

Keep up the good work little guy.