We're Finally Getting Some Results

The results of Ellie's acid reflux study and pneumogram finally came in. The results of her pneumogram (also called a sleep study) basically showed that she has an expected level of immaturity that affects her breathing. She'll stay on her caffeine after she goes home and she'll go home on a monitor. The acid reflux study showed that she does have more reflux than normal. She doesn't have a severe case but it is enough to treat. So she'll be taking prilosec once a day. Dr. Hall mentioned that babies that don't have a severe case of acid reflux may not spit up very much. Some other signs she mentioned include arching her back, turning red and tensing up. We've definitely seen her do that. We often say she's just working on a stool but if that were true wouldn't she be stooling more often? Well they start the prilosec today and takes 3 days to fully get into her system. So hopefully by the end of the weekend she'll be a happier baby with less arching and better sleeping. We also talked to Ellen about feeding her now and when she gets home. There have been a couple times when Ellie would suck on her pacifier for awhile even after finishing a bottle. So we were asking Ellen about how much we should feed her when she goes home. Ellen said she would give me the formula she uses because she knew I would calculate it myself. Right now she gets 160 mL per kg per day. At Ellie's current weight that comes to 56 mL per feeding. We're going to transition into feeding her more like we would at home. So if she almost finishes a bottle and just has a few mL left we won't gavage feed the rest we'll just call it good. I don't know if that will start immediately or not until she's consistently finishing (or almost finishing) all her bottles. Ellen also said if she takes about 140 mL per kg per day that's still okay. At Ellie's current weight that comes to 49 mL per feeding. She said we can use that formula for the first few weeks after we take her home and after that we should be more comfortable with figuring that stuff out the same way any other parents would.

Gold Sticker Please

Ellie did so well on her bottle feedings yesterday that she is now on ad lib feedings! She got her 9 am feeding as usual and took the whole bottle. Sometime before that feeding started (or at least before it was over) Ellen wrote the order to let her have a bottle at every feeding if she is awake and alert. We are very excited at the news ... but not as excited as we are at the other news. Mandy decided to try breastfeeding today instead of tomorrow. Ellie was awake and ready at noon even after bottle feeding 9 am so Mandy tried it then. We were making sure that we didn't have too high of hopes because we knew that a lot of babies don't do all that well on the first try. But not so little Ellie ate 22 mL! *UPDATE: They measure how much she takes from the breast by weighing her before and after she eats. In case some of you wondered how exactly that was "measured." Then she took some additional from a bottle. (She did still have a little left over given to her through her feeding tube.) We were very excited! Mandy and I have just been on cloud nine ever since. We are both thoroughly amazed by our daughter She definitely deserves a gold lettered princess sticker for that. Praise God for how well our Ellie is doing. We are both so thankful that she did so well on her first time. And the nurses and Ellen are all really impressed and very happy for us. We can't wait to try bottle feeding at 3 o'clock.

The Big Green One

Well Ellie had another good assessment tonight. She weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz (2785 g), a gain of 15 grams. She also finished her bottle at her 9 pm feeding. Not only did she finish, she looked like she was ready for some more. She also had a big stool at her 6 pm feeding. It was big and it was army green. (thus the blog title) She's been pretty consistent with the color of her stools lately so I'm interested (yes, I'm interested in her poop) to see if that will change when the new feeding schedule works its way through. (Remember it hasn't been too long since they put her on milk 6 times a day and formula twice a day.) By the way, two of her feedings every day are still the two formula feedings. I guess that's not such a bad thing, she'll be used to both tastes.