Caroline's One Week Old

Yesterday was a  much better day for Caroline. The docs are treating her for necrotizing enterocolitis, even though they are not seeing much on her repeated x-rays. None of her cultures are growing anything so they are not abe to pinpoint any other type of infection. She was breathing well yesterday so it was decided to extubate her. She handled this well and only had a handful of apnea episodes as of 2AM. They also decided that because she will have to be fed through an IV for one or more weeks, she would need a PICC line - this is a longer lasting IV line (regular IV lines must be changed very 3 days). They attempted to insert it through both her foot and her head to no avail. Caroline has stubborn veins just like her Mommy. (She also hates to have both legs tucked into her "sleeping bag" and insists on laying with one leg hanging over the side... I also sleep like this! I'll try to get a pic of her doing it today.) They will try again tomorrow with a different practitioner as she will definitely need this to prohibit getting a new IV every 3 days - a real pain. The only thing that was off yesterday was her sodium. They adjusted her fluids several times to reduce her sodium until they finally cut it out altogether. She is pee'ing a ton as well but the pediatric kidney specialist thinks that is not a problem and instead is indicative of being a preemie. She is being fed a mixture of electrolytes (at a cost of $1,000 per day!!! Thank God for insurance!)  and lipids for the next week or so to clear out her gut and give it time to heal, and then they will reintroduce breast milk in very small amounts (starting with 1ml).

Some pics from yesterday:

The respiratory therapist, Gary, right before removing her breathing tube

Hopefully the last time she will be intubated

She's free of the breathing tube! (And you can see her little foot trying to poke out!)

Matt and Tyler prepared a funny NH welcome for my Mom

No, she did not sleep with the fur!

Matt leaves the house and all hell breaks loose! Ty used dish soap in the dishwasher (don't worry, it's all good now!)