Anna's Update

Anna has finally been extubated!! Yay! She has been off the tube since Thursday and she is doing so wonderfully. She is on a ventilator now called the si-pap which basically is a face mask that she wears which has oxygen flowing through it to keep her lungs from collapsing fully during the times when she exhales. So this makes the transition to her breathing on her own exclusively, much easier for her. This also helps her to not get too tired. Whereas when she was intubated she had the machine breathing for her basically. In this picture, she is fully breathing on her own. I was holding her while the nurse changed her sheets so she was off of the ventilator for about 20 minutes and was doing such a great job! The little tube that's in her mouth is the feeding tube because she hasn't yet developed the swallowing reflex at this young of an age.

The great thing is that she hasn't had any spells -- where she forgets to breathe. This is the first time she hasn't ever had any, and its been like this for the last 24 hours. That is an amazing feat for her because it's one of the requirements to being transferred to a Level II facility. She is on 15mLs of milk per 2 hours, and is steadily gaining weight now, about 20-30 grams per day. She is up to 1137 grams which is 2 lbs 8 oz. That doesn't seem like a heavy number to most people but considering how much she has grown it is a great number! I held her yesterday and I could actually feel some weight to her for the first time!

As for me, I am having a really tough time. The more weight she gains the more her face resembles her big brothers face. It's just so tough not to be reminded of him and what we lost. Most of the time when we are visiting her I am so so so happy to see my little girl, but once I get home to edit all the pictures I just get so down because she is almost an identical twin of her brother and I start to replay the entire "video" in my head over and over again, and start to over analyze and wish I had done things differently ie different hospital, c-section earlier etc.

Anyways despite that, I am trying to concentrate on staying positive. Our little girl is so precious and perfect and we can't wait to have her at home!