Many Changes

Emma has had a wonderful last couple of days, there are so many things to update everyone on.  First and foremost, Emma was baptized on Wednesday evening.  Our priest, Father Dan Oschwald, was nice enough to drive to Chapel Hill and give Emma the sacrament of baptism in the hospital.  He said it was his first ever hospital baptism in 14 years in the priesthood.  It was a very special moment, as he dipped his thumb into some sanitized water (of course it was sanitized) and let a couple drops fall down onto her head.  Emma didn't even flinch!  She was sleeping, very cozy in Mommy's arms.  The whole thing took about 5 minutes, if that.  Once Emma comes home we will have a ceremony in the church where she will wear a white gown instead of her hospital swaddling blanket and the whole ceremony will be done.  For these purposes, though, only the water and oil were applied to her head.  There was no baptismal candle or anything like that, and in the church ceremony we will get all of that.

She's getting 20ml of milk at every feeding now, so almost 5.5 ounces a day total.  She's tolerating all of that very well.  She's gained even more weight over the last couple days, and tonight when they weighed her she was 2 pounds and ALMOST 5 ounces.  The trend in the right direction continues for little Emma in that department.  She's fighting, that's for sure.  She knows she has a lot of making up to do and she's determined to do it.  We're so proud of her!!

Another change is in her isolette.  They still have her in the same one for now, but previously they were pumping some humidity into it.  They turned that off yesterday, though, so it's now just temperature controlled.  So after taking her off of caffeine on Tuesday, they took away her humidity the next day.  Then today they reduced the pressure in her nasal cannula.  There are still a couple more steps they'll have to take prior to taking her completely off of that, but assuming she tolerates this reduction well, they will contemplate reducing it again tomorrow.  Once they do make that next reduction, the next step would be to remove it altogether and have her breathing only room air.  That would be an amazing accomplishment for little Emma at this point.  But again, we're taking it one day at a time and we'll see how she tolerates this initial reduction before we get too excited.

You may also have noticed that the layout of the blog has changed as well.  The reason for that is two fold.  Even before Emma was born, we knew that she was going to have a purple room.  I painted it a couple weeks before she arrived, not even anticipating that she'd be that early.  It's a good thing I went ahead and painted it since it would be impossible to find the time to do so now!  But anyway, her room and most of the stuff in it is purple, so having a purple blog for her is more fitting.  Secondly, as you may notice in the picture above, Britne is wearing a purple wrist band (I wear one too, in case you were wondering).  These are from the March of Dimes and they are to help bring awareness to premature birth.  In the days to come I'll be doing a much more detailed posting on the March of Dimes and what it is they do.  But their main color is purple, so it's fitting that this blog should be a tribute to them as well.

I think I've hit on all the major changes that have occurred over the last 2 days.  If I have missed anything I'll be sure and add it in tomorrow night.  Sleep tight everyone!