3 pounds, 50 days, and Dr. Shah

Well, yesterday Riley finally crossed the 3 pound mark. And today, she gained even more weight. As of her 9pm weighing tonight, she was over 1400g, about 3lb 2oz! It's amazing looking at her now, and even just in the past few days she seems to have gotten so much bigger. I've constantly been measuring her with my hands and I can really see the difference since her birth. Her whole body seems more "plump", and her fingers, arms, and head all appear to have grown.

Driving to the hospital yesterday, it occurred to me that it was the 50th consecutive day I had pulled into that parking garage...crazy to think it's been that long. Wow, time flies! Today was Pam's first day back at work since before going into the hospital back on May 11th. I know it was a good feeling for her to go back, and I'm sure they were very happy to have her there. She's just going to work part-time for awhile, probably until Riley comes home, then she'll take some more time off.

We were supposed to meet with Dr. Shah yesterday, but after waiting around for over an hour he called to say he was running late and would be another 30 minutes. We had dinner plans with my parents for our anniversary (yes, last week was our 5th wedding anniversary, but we never got time to celebrate!) So we rescheduled for 9:30 tonight. He finally showed at 10:15... As a few of you have commented, this is typical for him - I guess he is the only neo/pedi-neurologist in town, so always has a full plate, plus he likes to work 3rd shift. It was the first time we had actually met him, and as a few have warned us, he really was a tiny little man - probably no taller than 5'? And he didn't have much of a personality either... But enough about him. He talked to us a little bit about the EEG from a few days ago, and the head ultrasound they did yesterday. Basically, he just confirmed that she was indeed having seizures, but based on everything else they are finding there doesn't seem to be any underlying causes other than the immaturity in her brain. They did find some grade 1 hemorrhaging in a few spots of her brain, but at that level they are not concerned, and don't even count it as any findings. So at this point, they don't plan on doing any more ultrasounds. He said they will do another EEG before she is dismissed, and probably an MRI as well. He said they plan on keeping her on the phenobarbital for the "short-term", meaning 2-3 months (maybe up to 3-6). At this point, he doesn't think there would be any reason to think she'll be on it longer. They are upping the dosage a little since she has still had some seizure activity since they started the treatments. They've also switched it to oral treatments, so they removed the IV again.

Here's a few pictures of our growing angel...


This one is from tonight. The light was just right, but couldn't get her to open her eyes. Since they put her on the sedatives (which she is still getting a few times a day to keep her calm), I don't think I've seen her eyes again.