March 26

Look who's not on a CPAP anymore!

Good news! Elsie  is continuing to make progress with her breathing! On Monday, it was determined that Elsie was doing well enough with her CPAP that the doctors decided she was ready for the next step. So the CPAP is gone, and she now has a "high flow nasal cannula," which is seen in the picture above. I'll be honest, I don't know exactly what the difference is between this new thing and the CPAP, but I know that it's progress and that's enough for me. It also means that pretty soon, she will be able to learn to eat by mouth, and someday her feeding tube will be removed for good (Her feeding tube is gone in the picture because they took it out to put in a new one, but she still usually always has the feeding tube in her mouth).

Here's another cutie-cute picture sent to us from our favorite nurse when they were switching from the CPAP to the high flow:

Look at those eyes! Look at those chubby cheeks with no tape on them for once! And don't be fooled by this somewhat svelte-looking chin; tucked underneath the sleep-sack that she's wrapped up in is several more layers of chubby chin. I love it.

Here's a fun comparison shot from the last time Elsie had all tubes out & all tape off her face (Feb. 18.) Looks a little different now, eh?! She definitely did not have a double chin back then :)

Elsie is 4 pounds 8 ounces today. She receives 36ml of fortified breast milk every 3 hours, via  her feeding tube. I think that's a little over 1 ounce per feeding. Her eyes are still being monitored each week to see if the ROP is getting worse; her next eye appointment is tomorrow. In the meantime, we are loving the increase in snuggle time since she has been moved to an open crib. So happy that our baby is stable enough to be able to hold her on a semi-regular basis.

We love our little cutie!