9 Days on Nasal Cannula & 1 Kilogram!

Caili is now into her 9th day on nasal cannula:

And, we're thrilled to report that she's still doing very, very well!

The only issue recently has been her lack of weight gain, but when they weighed her last night she had gained 32 grams, passing the 1 kilogram milestone! She's now 2 pounds, 4 ounces. The doctors were confident they could find the key to her weight gain, and hopefully she'll continue gaining and prove that they have.

Most of what they've been doing is adding fortifiers and supplements to her breast milk, but they also took the precaution of reducing our holding privileges to once per day, roughly 15 minutes at a time. While I was certainly disappointed, Lauren took the news particularly hard.

She had been holding Caili a couple of times a day, an hour or more each time, and her daily holds had become something that she enjoyed immensely--an incredible bonding time between mother and daughter that was anxiously awaited from one hold to the next. Lauren understandably feels truly deprived to now have that bonding so severely limited, although we both obviously want only what is best for Caili. It's just that we think holding her is what's best for Caili:

Her temperature stays consistent, and her breathing and heart rate both get better, not more labored. It's our hope that she'll continue putting on weight like she should, and our holding privileges will be gradually increased back to the point where we can hold her as much as possible!

Holding limits aside, we're absolutely thrilled at her progress! The fact that she's been able to last more than a week on the cannula is awesome; it means that when she does set about growing, all the new lung tissue she grows should be totally healthy--unharmed by the force of the ventilator. Her meteoric rise seems to have really surprised the doctors too, although they are quick to remind us that setbacks could of course still lie ahead. We're all too well aware of that, but for now we've doing our best to embrace the good news, not think too much about what could go wrong, and cross what bridges lie ahead when we arrive at them.

Here's one final picture of the diaper that she's just outgrown. Note that she's outgrown it not in size (it was actually still too large), but in output. My mother carries one around (an unused one, of course!) and shows it to anyone and everyone. I have to agree that it is about as cute as a diaper can be!