65 days

Today marked 65 days of living in a hospital; that's 9 weeks and 2 days for those of you counting. Caroline is 2 weeks adjusted today and just over 5 pounds again! We have made so much progress here in Boston and I feel that the end of hospital living is near.

We are still awaiting results of Caroline's growth hormone test, but her cortisol apparently came back in the normal range - this is awesome news although I would like to get more information about it tomorrow from the endocrine team (I just heard the news through a nurse Friday night). So here's where we are at:

• Sex hormones - Yes
• Vassopressin - No
• Thyroid - No
• Cortiol - No???
• Growth - No results yet, however this is the most common hormone missing in people with septo-optic dysplasia

Caroline's sodium and potassium have been pretty level the past few days so she only requires labs every 12 hours. She still has her central line in with the bare minimum of fluids running through it just to keep it going. I think it will come out soon - possibly tomorrow. She takes her liquid Synthroid orally and I give her the DDAVP injection at 8PM. I've done it twice now. The first time I had to stick her twice because I pulled out when she started crying. Tonight I learned that taking a band-aid off of her appears to hurt more than the shot!  She was also started back on vitamins and iron today and did well with them both.

I believe they would like to start fortifying a few of her bottles soon to help her grow but this time they want to stay away from Neosure 24 and instead use a more elemental formula. We also got the go ahead to start breastfeeding again today. It worked like this: every 3 hours Caroline got a bottle of 43mL's (about 1.5 ounces) but if she wanted more I could breastfeed her. Tonight they offered her a 60mL bottle (2 ounces) and allowed her to drink  as much as she wanted. She took the whole thing. The endocrine docs have said that she will regulate her own thirst which will in turn regulate her sodium levels. I am very curious to know what her sodium level will be in the morning after a night of regulating herself.

I have been lucky the last few nights and got into a room at one of the family houses, but will go back to the sleep dungeon tomorrow. It's actually great timing though because sleeping in the hospital means I can come in to feed Caroline during the night.

My mom and sister came to Boston on Friday and stayed with my dear friend Lianne Friday night. They quickly saw Caroline and then we went to dinner. On Saturday afternoon they came back for a more extended visit but we all decided it would be a heck of a lot easier for them to drive to my house and hang out there instead of trying to keep two babies entertained in the hospital! Mom, Katie and the kids arrived at my house last night and got to work cleaning it up. They all went grocery shopping today so that Katie and Mom can make some things for the freezer to add to what's already there. Emma had a good time feeding the chickens today but didn't want to pick a carrot because she didn't like the dirt. This from the kid who tried to eat her shoe yesterday after walking around the hospital. Yuck! My family is here until Tuesday morning so Ty is working on getting Katie to play volleyball tomorrow night. I definitely think she'd have fun if she's able to break away from the babes for an hour or so.

That's all the news I can think of for now. I am looking forward to introducing Caroline to her first non-family member, Lianne, tomorrow afternoon!

Praying to go home?

Dad on bottle duty

Loves her WabbaNub

Oma and Caroline

Katie gets her turn

Counting already?

After Mom came in Friday night I went out to get Katie for her turn. Emma said, "Emma's turn see Caroline." Too cute!