Frustrated, Tired, Cranky, Anxious...What Else is New?

Lately things have been so frustrating. I think me and the hubby are both done like dinner. Him moreso than myself because he has to go to work, deal with the 2.5 hour commute, deal with stress there, then drive home to pick me up and then we head to Toronto every day, deal with the commute, deal with the (some) cranky nurses, deal with being tired etc. It's just tough but hopefully there will be an end in sight soon. It's all for a good cause anyway but sometimes we all just need to take a step back and rest a little. Some of us more than others :) -- especially those of us who love their naps.

We spoke with a really lovely nurse the other day, she teaches all the new nurses in the NICU and she said they are moving locations Sept 12 and will have to "evict" -- if you will, all of the healthy babies by then because they can't possibly move all the babies to the new unit. So she said definitely by then Anna will be ready to go to level II. But most likely before Sept 12th. How exciting!! That means our little girl will be so much closer to home and we can see her throughout the day and not just one spurt of 2 hour visits each day. Hopefully she can get into the hospital 5 mins from our house, but if not the next one down is about a 20 minute drive for us (which is heaven sent compared to the 1 hour drive we do each way now).

Her requirements to be discharged at this point from the Level III unit is to breathe on her own (low flow oxygen is ok), to be clinically stable and to be tolerating her feeds. The only thing left for her at this point is to learn how to breathe fully on her own. Right now they are weaning her so she is on 6 hours of breathing on her own, and 6 hours of si-pap cycling. So 12 out of the 24 hours each day she breathes on her own. Initially they started her on 8 hours/4hours sipap but she got a bit too tired for that so they slowed it down.

She also has some reflux issues but they've combated that for the most part by lengthening her feeds to 1.5 hours. Which means she literally eats ALL DAY :) It's insane, as soon as her feed is done, boom click bang, and her next one is set up to go.

Hopefully once she is off of si-pap we can start feeding her via bottle. She LOVES her suckie so it seems that she won't have much trouble with the sucking part. Who knows about the swallowing though, that will be touch and go for a little while.

Her requirements to be discharged from Level II to home will be to take all of her feeds by bottle, not have any apneas of "spells" where she forgets to breathe and to consistently gain weight.

She will be 6 weeks old tomorrow (32 weeks gestation) and she is up to 3lbs and .04oz so she's doing great! I can't wait to have her home...it is so hard to leave your little baby in the hospital each night.