Big Girl Bed and Cannulas

Our girl is just cruisin' along!  Since my last post Jolene has continued to steadily improve and her body has adjusted really well to daily changes that have been made.  It's nice to hear the nurses say that she is their "good" baby.  She tries not to cause too many problems. :)

Jolene was put into a big girl bed - the blue crib - on Sunday.  The babies get upgraded to the blue crib when they are mostly "out of the woods," so to speak.  She won't require any more surgical procedures (at least we aren't counting on any!), can regulate her own body temperature pretty good (her old bed had a warmer) and won't need to be re-intubated (have the ventilator tube put back in).  In the picture above you can see her feeding apparatus in the top left corner (the orange thing with the syringe on top).  They have the coolest machines!  You can measure out the amount of milk you want to be given (this works for things like blood as well) and the rate at which you want it to be delivered, and then just hook the syringe up to the feeding tube and snap it into the machine.  Jolene's feeding rates have gone up slowly over the last few days and she went a couple of days without any spitting up. She did have a few spit ups last night and this morning though, so today's rate won't be changing.  Jolene is probably the most excited about getting her CPAP machine off last night.  She responded well to the weaned rates and so they have now switched her to a high-flow nose cannula.  No more mask and tube in the middle of her face!  The picture at the top of the post is of her with a regular cannula though, and she had to go back up to the high flow, but that was expected (and due to a little miscommunication between night and day teams).  She still needs the pressure from the high flow cannula to keep her lungs open.  Either way, it's progress!

Our little Jellybean has also been busy capturing the hearts of her caretakers...many of the nurses, respiratory therapists and doctors who have cared for her periodically check in to see how she is doing.  One of her nighttime nurses, Tammy, just couldn't take it anymore and found some clothes to put her in.  We had decided she probably didn't need any, since she naturally gets kind of hot anyway, and she still has some wires and other devices that are in the way.  Jolene is also the third child and by then parents aren't nearly as excited about things like clothes.  Poor baby. :)  Anyway...Tammy put her in some clothes and she doesn't seem to mind them.  It makes her look so much older!  One of Jolene's other favorite nurses, Brooklyn, bought her a stuffed animal - a duck - yesterday.  She loved that when Emery came in this last weekend she said Jolene's voice sounded like a duck (her voice is still hoarse from being on the ventilator).  It is so wonderful to have people who care so much!  If you have to be in the NICU and your baby has to go through so much stuff, it certainly helps to have people there who can make the experience so much better.  Thank you!  And thank you all for your continued prayers!