Time to Dance

Today was a busy day. Ruby got moved over, away from the door and close to a window. There is a program called NIDCAP where a nurse observes the baby and pays attention to the way they respond to all sorts of stimuli. Babies born as early as Ruby have brains that are not ready to process so much outside information and it can really stress them out. They have a more obvious and immediate physiological response than we do and stress can have a big impact on the most basic body functions. Right now our focus is on breathing and growing and stress from over stimulation makes these normally automatic things harder for Ruby to do. Anyway, we moved today. Away from the door and the sink and all the extra noise. I'm hoping that this will help Ruby grow faster and breathe more easily.

Today they weaned her off her BiPAP and she just has CPAP now. It's a small difference - BiPAP gives her positive pressure and a back up rate and can deliver breaths if she stops breathing for too long. CPAP just gives some positive pressure to help keep her lungs inflated. AND she gets 10 mls of breast milk every 3 hours. She was up to 15 mls before surgery. We had been advancing those really slowly and we were a little afraid that we were going to be starting from scratch. It took us 2 weeks to get up to 15! (P.S. in case you are wondering, 15 mls is half an ounce) Needless to say, we were practically doing a dance when our NP came in and said go up to 10. Wait, practically or literally - you'll never know.

Overall, Dr. O'Riordan said he is happy with Ruby's progress post-op. We love him because when he's excited, he's really obvious about it and he was excited today. This picture is an old one but that is him in the background. We were changing her bed and it was the first time we got to pick her up. Our NP, Cheri, called him and said hurry and come to Ruby's room and see how good she's doing with her Mom & Dad. And he was right there.