Maggie is 3 weeks old today and has passed the 4 pound mark. Today she weighed 4 lbs 1 ounce. She seems to be gaining an ounce or two each day, which is great news! It's all about eating and growing!
Maggie had a few record breaking nursing sessions this week (getting 12ml at two different feedings). We determine this by weighing her before and after we nurse to know how much she gets. Then she receives the rest of her feeding via gavage. She now is up to 37ml per feeding (every 3 hours).
Jeff asked when Maggie will start to add bottle feedings to her routine. Right now the nurses said that once Maggie reaches 35 weeks gestation, which is early next week, they will add a bottle feeding once at night along with the two nursing sessions we are currently doing.
35 weeks coincides with the natural stage in a baby's development where they develop the sucking reflex. As long as she does well with those, I think they will gradually start adding more nursing and bottle feedings. This will bring us much closer to bringing her home. We anticipate Maggie to be in the NICU at the very least another two weeks.
The only other new development to report is that Maggie has a diaper rash, so she has a special ointment to take care of it. It's a bit different from regular diaper rash. It's more of a yeast-infection type rash. Maggie was given antibiotics when she was first born, which killed some of the good bacteria that would typically fight off this type of infection. I think that the ointment is working, as she didn't have the same pimples on her skin that I noticed yesterday.
I can't believe the last three weeks have passed so quickly. I looked at the calendar today and it's already Halloween next weekend. I feel like time has literally stood still, but it obviously hasn't. While we still have a little time left before Maggie comes home, I feel like we have so much to do.
Jeff and I will spend much of the weekend getting progress made on Maggie's room, setting up the bassinet in our room, washing baby clothes, etc. We are just so excited for her to come home.
No comments:
Post a Comment