So, 2 or 3 days ago, I mentioned that Emma would stay at 13ml of milk for a good little while. Then yesterday she went up to 15ml. We were then told that she would probably increase to 16ml and stay there for a while. Today, they increased her to 18ml. Her night nurse told me this evening that she'll probably stay there for a while until she starts gaining more weight. I'll believe that when I see it! So she's now up to a total of just shy of 5 ounces of milk every day. But she still didn't hit the 2 pound mark, she held steady at 1 pound 15 ounces tonight. She's a little booger!! She did lose her umbilical cord this evening, though. It wasn't much bigger than a little booger either, so that nickname is fitting tonight.
In my very first post on this blog, I detailed how when Britne was 28 weeks pregnant we found out that Emma was a growth restricted baby. When she was born a couple weeks later, the doctors told us that it could have been any number of things ranging from a bad placenta to a possible chromosomal problem that caused her to be small. They informed us that it would be anywhere from a couple days to a couple weeks before we heard anything definitive as they had to run a lot of tests on a blood sample they got from Emma, as well as on the placenta itself. We've been on pins and needles ever since, not so patiently awaiting the word. Well, today we got the news: the placenta was bad and that was what was restricting her growth. The initial chromosomal screening came back normal as well. So at this point, we feel pretty good that it was nothing more than a bad placenta restricting our little Emma from growing more. And now that she's in the NICU getting nutrients from Mommy's milk she should start to take off soon.
Part of the effort to get her to gain weight was to add more and more milk to her diet every day. This trend has continued every day for the last week and a half or so. For the last 5 or 6 days they have also been fortifying her milk to add calories to it, and the fortification has increased slowly over the course of this week. Today they added a multivitamin to her repertoire that will also help her gain some weight. The nurse practitioner told Britne today that they want to fatten her up! According to the book they gave us, if a baby is getting less than 5 ounces of milk every day a multivitamin supplement could be used to help add weight. Some of the nutrients present in the multivitamin are essential, such as folic acid which helps fight anemia. Vitamin D works along with calcium (one of the substances used to fortify the milk) to help strengthen her bones. Vitamin K helps prevent bleeding, and both Vitamins A and E help fight tissue damage that's present in many common complications of prematurity. So not only will the multivitamin help add some weight to her, it'll aid her in avoiding many complications. That's not to say that she won't have those complications, but the multivitamin will help fight them off.
So all in all, today was a pretty darn good day for Emma. We needed a good day like this. Recently while driving through Chapel Hill, I was pulled for speeding, but luckily a very nice cop was the one who pulled me and decided to let me off with just a warning. Then my car started acting up recently and it's now in the shop over the weekend. Fortunately, though, they were able to provide me with a very nice loaner car, so it's not all that bad. But we were beginning to feel like there was just a dark cloud hanging over us. I was beginning to feel a little like Joe Pesci in this scene (Caution: Not completely kid friendly). So having a good day like today really helped us out a bunch! Emma is doing very, very well overall.
Every day we hear from more and more folks who are keeping up with Emma's progress through this blog. We can't even begin to express how grateful we are for that. People from far away places are glued to these daily updates. Who knew that someone so little could captivate so many people's lives? It seems every day we hear from someone new that's praying for little Emma. So thank you everyone! Keep up the prayers, and may God bless each and every one of you as well.
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