Staying Strong

Lauren has been doing very well these last few days. She was taken off CPAP on Monday @ 9am and was put on high flow oxygen through a cannula in her nose. (You can see what it looks like in the pictures.) So far she has been doing well and has not needed to go back on CPAP. That is still an option if she does get tired out. Having Lauren off CPAP is so nice when I get to hold her because now I can actually feel her little head against me instead of the hat & CPAP tubing. I'm glad her head is also getting a break from wearing the hat. She occasionally desats, but brings herself right back up with no help.

Lauren is also becoming more and more vocal. She is able to give a cry that actually sounds like a real baby instead of little whimpers. She still amazes me with her strength. She can lift her head up and turn it side to side with no problem. She has also hit the 3lb mark and will hopefully continue to gain at a good rate now. We're so excited she's at 3lbs!

We are still hoping for a transfer to Salem Hospital at some point. The doctors would like Lauren to have her next eye exam (next week, I think) and then think more about getting approval for transfer. The reason they want the eye exam done first is because if she needs treatment, it is done at St. V's.

We are hoping that we are getting into the more boring part of Lauren's stay in the NICU. The doctors touch base with us everyday to let us know how things are going and instead hearing how one thing is better and something else is worse, hopefully it will be more of a steady incline of improvement from now on. We don't want to get complacent though.

We learned of little nickname that the night shift Nurses gave to Lauren a while ago. Apparently when she would desaturate, there was one Nurse that would talk to her very quietly and sweet while stimulating her to breathe. Well...it sounded like she was saying "Norman, you can do it" "breathe Norman..." So finally, another Nurse asked her why she was calling her Norman and she said "No...I'm saying Lauren it's just to quiet to hear". So now we occasionally refer to Lauren as Norman.