Swingin' Riley

Riley's continuing to make progress this weekend. On Saturday, they moved her to the low-flow nasal cannulas. She has done well on it, so today they started the bolus feedings (moved down to 30 minutes from 2 hours). She has been handling it pretty well, gets a little fussy and gassy when her stomach gets full, which can raise her heart rate and respiratory rate, but after a bit she calms down and falls right asleep. Hopefully they will be able to get her to take the bottle tomorrow. Most likely, she'll be able to to take a little bit but will grow tired quickly and will still need the feeding tube to finish each feeding. Our goal is to have her gradually take more and more of the bottle and move off of the feeding tube. That is her last step towards coming home.

We are planning to finally take the infant CPR class this week, along with the baptism class. We have to get the CPR class in before she comes home, and they wanted us to wait until it was close to her homecoming. Assuming everything continues to go to plan, we'll likely be spending a few nights in the "family care" unit at the hospital next weekend or the following week. We will have to stay there with Riley in the room so they can make sure we can administer her phenobarbital, make the necessary changes to her O2 levels (since she'll be coming home on it), and know how how to use the apnea monitor. After that, she'll be headed home! So....best case scenario we are looking at about a week or so. But it all depends on how she takes the bottles this week.

Pam had a bunch of her family in town this weekend. Riley got to meet Uncle John and Aunt Emily for the first time, will have to wait til she gets out of NICU to meet cousin Benjamin. Great-Grandma and Grandpa Bearth were in town as well, not only to see Riley but also to see John before he ships out to Korea for a year in a few weeks. She handled all the visitors really well, and I know we all enjoyed seeing every one.

Riley has been awake and "fussy" more than ever now. The nurses are always telling us how much time she has been spending in their arms, or in her bouncy seat, and today she surprised us by being in her swing when we showed up. It was hilarious to see her swinging (very fast) side to side with all her wires attached. She was moving so fast, yet sound asleep! Here's a photo...