3 steps forward, 2 steps back

Well after such a great week, Riley had another small setback this week. The day after Pam got to hold her, she had a rough night and a bad start to the day so I wasn't able to hold her. As it turns out, Riley now has a slight infection. Nothing too bad, but they have her back on antibiotics (which means that darn IV is back in her), and her oxygen needs have gone back up as a result. She's started to calm down now, and the sedatives are keeping her content, but now its going to be another few days before I can hold her for the first time. Lucky Pam, she got hers in before the infection set in. Unfortunately, it seems like every time she makes some real progress, she takes a small step backward.

On the bright side, Riley is still gaining weight like crazy. At this point, she's averaging over an ounce a day - and tonight was up to 3lb 14oz!!! At this rate, she's going to be 6 pounds by the time she comes home. But I'm sure the gain will slow down a bit as time goes on. The formula they are giving her is surely causing this gain, which is what it was intended for, but they don't plan on backing it off unless she gets into the "too big" category. She is filling out nicely and from all accounts, is looking more and more like my baby pictures every day.

Her ventilator settings have gone up a bit thanks to this infection. For those of you following this, PIP/PEEP settings are at 27/6 (up from 24/6 last week) and FiO2 is hovering between 40-50. We need to get those down around 17/4 and 25 to get her off the ventilator - and even then she'll still be on oxygen through a nose feed (like you see a lot of elderly people one, just a little smaller). The doctor even told me I needed to keep telling Riley its time to get off that ventilator - he said if I don't establish the dominance now that she'll always think she can get her way when she's older - HAHA!

Haven't got too many good pictures the past few days, but here's one I took last night that turned out okay. You can really tell she's getting bigger, and is looking cute in all her new clothes.