Emma had another good day today. They moved her into a new isolette that does not have any humidity option at all. Previously they had just turned off the humidity in her old isolette, but today they moved her into a new one completely. It's still temperature controlled so they can still provide heat to her, but since she's growing so well she's not going to need the humidity anymore. Yaaaay Emma!!!!
Other than that, everything today remained the same as yesterday. Her oxygen remained on what they call a low flow, her feeds held steady, she's still tolerating her feeds well. She's doing everything that she should be doing. In fact, that's exactly what the doctor who I spoke with today, Dr. Bose, told me. Apparently since she moved up to Pod C she now has a new group of doctors as well. Dr. Bose stopped by and talked to me about Emma's progress and where we go from here. He let me know their expectations for her from here on out, as well as the requirements for her to be discharged.
I cannot tell you how many times I've heard from people a variation of the following statement: "I'm sure as soon as Emma hits 5 pounds they'll send her home." It's as if folks assume that when she weighs 5 pounds, she'll be completely OK, but not before that. In all actuality, weight, while a factor, doesn't play nearly as big of a role as everyone thinks.
First, she has to be able to eat from a bottle. Up to this point they've been feeding her through a tube that goes directly into her stomach. They will not send her home until she can successfully eat all of her feeds from a bottle. Second, she has to be breathing better with no assistance. While it's not uncommon for some babies to go home on oxygen, they want Emma to have no breathing assistance when she comes home. They're testing her now with the low flow oxygen, and if she responds well to that, they'll gradually work her down off of that completely until she is on 100% room air with no nasal cannula or any other form of assistance. And finally, she does have to gain weight. There's no real magic number as far as what they want for her to go home, but they would prefer her to be over 4 pounds. Dr. Bose told me that in years past they didn't remove babies from the isolette until they hit 4 pounds, but now they start doing it when they hit 3 and a half pounds. At that point they get them into a regular crib because they are better able to hold their body temperature. Added body fat helps babies fight off temperature drops, and that's the final qualification for being ready to go home, holding her own temperature with no assistance from an isolette.
He gave me a time frame of how long he thinks it will be before Emma hits all of those milestones, but we'll just wait and see. I'm hesitant to write it here because I know that once that time has passed if she's still there folks will be freaking out and asking us why she's not home, what's gone wrong, etc, etc. Suffice it to say, we felt very encouraged by his hypothesis. But he did say that I was not to hold him to that, because as everyone else has said, things can change in an instant. But he indicated to me that it was very unlikely that we would be taking home a 5 pound baby. He seems to think that she will be well under that weight with how well she's progressed up to this point.
So all in all, yet another positive day for little Emma and her parents. We got some encouraging news on our baby girl, she got a new house for the next few weeks, she's still doing everything she's supposed to do (although we know that won't last once she's home, she's going to give us hell). We could not be more proud of her. She's such a good little girl. Keep it up sweetheart!! Mommy and Daddy (and a whole lot of other folks) love you very much!!
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