Day 51 : Great Progress

Well it's day 51 and Phoebe continues to make progress; Laura has just come back from visiting with Alyson and the reports are good. She is now weighing 1891g (4lbs 3oz) and is continuing to gain weight steadily.

It really does feel like we're on the home stretch, although we've got a number of hurdles to cross first. There are a number of things that Phoebe needs to achieve before she will be allowed to go home.

1) She has to graduate to a cot (she's still in an incubator); At the moment the incubator is set to a temperature to keep her warm so they are gradually reducing it until it is actually the room temperature; When she is comfortable at that level and still gaining weight etc they will put her into a cot and bundle her nicely in blankets like you would any old baby!

2) She has to go five days without any desats, braddies, or apnia; which means that she needs to be able to breathe completely and do it consistently without any dips; Obviously this is as much for our benefit as Phoebe's as we don't want to spend our life reminding her to breathe! She's still desaturating quite a bit at the moment, so pray that she'll get stronger (which she will with size).

3) She needs to be able to take all of her feeds by bottle or breast for a period of 48 hours. She is currently receiving almost all of her milk (precision pumped by Laura!) via the feeding tube in her nose. Laura is starting to breastfeed her now although it's really just getting phoebe used to the taste and sensation of latching on - it doesn't offer any nutritional benefit at this stage, but is really important for Phoebe to start to develop the swallowing/sucking/breathing reflexes, and is fantastic bonding.

So that's where we're at; Please pray that Phoebe continues to develop in the coming weeks. We also need prayer for our shipping as it's taking an eternity to arrive! I received an email to say that it won't arrive into Vancouver until the 9th, and we can't process any paperwork until after it arrives, so we could be looking at a week after that at least which is frustrating as by then we will have paid for a months rent and not even spent one night there (although I did take a wee there last week!). As ever here are a couple of photos for you.

Phoebe in a deep sleep

Me getting a cuddle with my baby girl