Leap Day Update on Izzy (by Meghan)

Well, it's Wednesday. It's hard to differentiate the days at this point. It feels a lot like when we were in the NICU. Each day that goes by it starts to feel more and more "normal.". We've gotten into a routine: I sleep here and spend most of the day here until the evening when I head home to see Jeremy, Maddy, and Sophie. Jeremy stops by after work to see Izzy and heads home with me so we can have a little bit of time together. Once the two girls at home get to bed, it's back to the hospital. It amazes me how dynamic we are making adjustments as needed and doing what we need to as each day comes. People keep telling me we're great parents, but I think we're just like any other parents would be, waking up each day and trying to do what's best for your kids.

I had a little break from hospital land today. Our favorite NICU nurse worked last night and met me at the coffee shop. It was nice to have some time to talk and hang out. She reminded me how some preemies can die from this. Izzy's nowhere near that bad (so mom, don't start telling everyone she almost died ;), but here we are, yet again, thankful for another miracle.

All right, getting to the update already! Izzy is doing great! It's just like in the NICU. We take two steps forward and one back, but she does make progress slowly over time. After my update yesterday about weaning the oxygen and starting feeds, we had some setbacks. They actually had to stop feeds and put the oxygen back up because she wasn't tolerating either adjustment.

Today things are looking up again. Not only did they start feeds again last night, but she was recently increased and seems to be tolerating it. She's only eating about half of her daily volume so far but she'll keep increasing with time. Her oxygen has been weaned from 65%-45%. Once she's down under 40% they'll begin to wean the liters of flow. Currently she's on 6 liters/hour, much higher than her typical 0.20 liters/hour at home. So we've still got a long way to go, but there's also a lot to be thankful for, too.

Here are some pics I've taken and a couple of videos. In this first video, you can compare her breathing from the beginning to how much it had improved through yesterday. She's a much happier baby.



Izzy's wubbanub taking a dip in sweet-ease to make sure she's getting some positive oral experiences while at the hospital



A sleeping angel




In this next video you can see her cough is starting to get worse. The nurses said this would happen as the stuff in her lungs starts to break up. She actually turned blue again today during a coughing spell. Thank goodness the nurse was here when it happened!



Here's Izzy saying thanks for all the prayers! I'm getting better slowly but surely!