Check out my new toy!

We visited Morgan again today after taking a day off from the NICU yesterday. Shelly decided to finally let me hold her again since she had somehow managed to hold her three times since my last turn...she's pretty conniving like that you know.

Anyway, I was obviously excited to see her and hold her again. Since being moved to the CPAP on Friday she has done really well. They have already weaned her from her original pressure setting of 8 all the way down to 6 and an oxygen rate of about 30 percent. Best of all she really hasn't had any apneas since coming off the ventilator so that is a really good sign. She'll have to get down to a pressure of 4 with oxygen in the 20-30 percent range before she'll be ready to come of the CPAP completely, so she still has some progress to make but she's headed in the right direction.

Morgan continues to do really well with her feeds, which are up to 23cc. She is now 2lbs 9oz and has grown to 14.5 inches.

The nurse taking care of Morgan today likes to give her a pacifier after she is fed so that she associates sucking with food. Apparently preemies that were intubated for as long as Morgan don't always like the pacifier at first, but she seems to know exactly what do.

Morgan with her pacifier.

A Tiny Cry

Morgan received the steroid shots for her lungs last Thursday with the reasoning that the side effects of the steroids will be less than that of long term ventillator use. Because of the shots she has been moving right along. Within about a week and a half she went from the oscillator ("rescue ventillator") to the conventional ventillator, and now to the CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure). It's not the most attractive thing but it gets the job done. She also hasn't had any apneas and has been doing very well on it. Since there are no tubes pressing on her vocal cords, we also got to hear her cry for the first time this week. It is very faint and we haven't been able to get it on video because of that. I'm sure in a few months when I get the real deal I will look back at that faint cry and laugh.

Since she has been doing so much better we have had and should have many more opportunities to hold her. I have managed to hold her four times now and poor John is still at one. Ha ha. :) Maybe when the newness wears off I will share? I'm just kidding. I will share this week. We also now get more consistency with nurses Before, the nurses who had trainees were caring for Morgan since she offered so many "learning" experiences. Most of the time we didn't mind but I prefer to have the consistency of just a few people.

This last week has been so great for Morgan and us! I am getting very excited about all she has accomplished and all the good things yet to come.

What a Fun Day!

Morgan is doing well on the regular ventillator. She has a small leak in her tube but it isn't causing any problems besides a faint wheezing noise so they are going to leave it alone for now. They are weaning her bit by bit on this ventillator. They have also discussed giving steroid shots over a course of ten days to boost her lung progress. There are some side effects to it but they believe that those may be less than having her on the ventillator for much longer.

John got to hold Morgan today for the first time. She did really well with it, all three hours of it! She seemed so peaceful and comfortable.

Morgan also got some new bed sheets. One of the nurses told us we could bring in some receiving blankets to dress up her area. So the sheets with all of the flowers are new for her. She is also wearing a hat given by Aunt Sherry which came with matching "NICU" outfits. The outfits are designed to easily open with velcro and not get in the way of any cords and IVs. Two volunteers came in and traced the outfits to use it as a pattern to sew additional outfits for the other babies. I guess Morgan is a trendsetter which is a far cry from me and my sweatpants.

Kangaroo Care, Here We Come

What a great surprise it was to walk into Morgan's NICU pod today and find that she had been moved back to the regular ventilator around 11:00 am this morning. And, if that wasn't enough good news for the day, they had already weaned her settings once since the change, and were able to do so again while we were visiting.

Who knew seeing this hooked up to your daughter could be a welcome sight?

Morgan really has come a long way in the last couple of weeks. In addition to being on the regular ventilator again, she is staying around 50% oxygen. She is completely off all the IV medications and now on full feeds so they removed the IV line from her arm today. Her feeds are up to 21cc, which is the max for her current weight. And most exciting of all, she should be ready for kangaroo care again in the next day or two. Once again, thanks for all the prayers and support through all of this.

This feels good, but I think you should hold me for real tomorrow.

The Big 3-0

Happy Birthday Morgan...she is six weeks old today and has reached 30 weeks gestational age. She is still making progress with her oscillator settings but isn't quite ready to go back on the regular ventilator. The doctor told us the goal was to get her switched over to the regular ventilator sometime this weekend. Hopefully Morgan decides to cooperate.

She continues to do really well with her feeds and is now up to 11cc every three hours. She is no longer on any IV medications, just her nutritional fluids and occasional doses of Ativan if she gets too active and her breathing interferes with the oscillator.

Nana and Papa are dealing with allergeries/colds so they decided to play it safe and not try to visit Morgan this weekend. We'll tell her she needs to do a lot growing over the next week so she can really impress them when they're feeling better next weeknd.

Before & After

Morgan continues to do really well post PDA surgery. Her feeds are up to 6cc every three hours and her oscillator settings were weaned some today. She is now up to 2 lbs 7 oz and measures in at 13.5 inches. Also, the nurse mentioned that during rounds this morning the doctors were discussing moving her back to the regular ventilator tomorrow if she continued to do well. Of course nothing has been decided, but it is nice to know that making the transition seems to be in the near future even it doesn't happen tomorrow.

And now for some cool before and after photos:

   Morgan @ 2 days old              Morgan @ 47 days old

   Before diaper change              During diaper change

As you can see, Morgan has come a long way, and Shelly has a long way to go...at least where diaper changes are concerned.

More Progress

We're happy to report that Morgan is starting to make some significant progress again. It definitely appears that she has recovered fully from her PDA ligation surgery, and she is beginning to show signs of improvement thanks to her newly closed ductus.

Her blood pressure and urine output have both continued to be excellent even without any medications. She is still on a low dose of Morphine and Versed, both of which are meant to keep her comfortable on the oscillator. However they have been weaning her down on them both and yet she still seemed more comfortable tonight than she has been lately.

Not only was she less squirmy, her oxygen saturation was much more stable. Normally, she would go up and down quite a bit and often desaturate temporarily when touched. Tonight, she stayed in the targeted 85-95 percent range for nearly the entire visit. The nurse said this is definitely reflected in her blood gasses which determine if they can wean her ventilator settings. They were able to wean her some earlier today and could do so again during the night if she continues on her current path. It's still going to be a pretty slow process but at least she is moving forward again.

We were also excited to hear that they started her feeds again yesterday. She initially got 2cc every four hours and around noon today they decided to go up to 4cc every four hours. So far she has been tolerating them well which is, of course, great news.

Finally, Shelly has been trying to catch this on video for a couple days and finally got her timing down tonight.

All this progress is making me sleepy.