Six Pounds!

With Thanksgiving only a week away, things are getting much busier here and it seems an update is overdue. Only 10 days from what was her original due date, Morgan's is now just over 6 lbs. She is still doing fine on the nasal cannula but they haven't really been able to wean her down very much.

One of the reasons her oxygen requirements haven't improved is that she started retaining some fluid again. Because of this they decided to give her a dose a lasix last weekend and continue giving her a dose every other day to make sure she is getting the fluid off of her quickly enough. Her doctor and nurses think that reflux during her feeds might be at the root of the problem. It's possible that she is refluxing and then breathing in some of the milk which would irritate the lungs and lead to fluid buildup.

On Wednesday they put a pH probe into her esophagus for 24 hours to monitor what's going on during her feeds. We should know by the weekend if it is severe enough to require treatment, however, they've already started thickening her milk which seems to be helping. If the pH probe shows a need, they might also put her on some medicine for the reflux.

Morgan is also getting a visit from an occupational therapist once a day to work on bottle feeding again. The first couple of days she didn't take very much, but again they think reflux might be working against her. Thursday morning, with the thicker milk, she took her entire bottle in about 15 minutes which is great. If she does well again on Friday, they may go up to two bottle feeds a day.

Also on the schedule for this week is a brain MRI. The hospital does them for preemies at around 38 weeks gestation as a standard practice. We don't anticipate any problems showing up, but we'll pass on the results when we have them.