Time to Dance

We had such a good day today. Russell went and saw Ruby this morning before he went to class - SO early. He reported weight gain AND the fact that Ruby stayed on room air all night long. A good start to the day.

I started a nursing research fellowship through work today. It was just a bit of an introduction but it got me really excited about everything and I can't wait to get started on my research project. It was especially excellent because it was done pretty early and I was at the hospital to snuggle by lunch time.

I talked to Ruby's NNP and saw her neonatologist, too. Both were so excited about her being on room air and felt good about her weight gain over the last few days and even felt comfortable increasing her total fluid volume intake (which translates to more breastmilk). About an hour later, Ruby's surgeon, Dr. Kurnow, came by to check her out. Her stoma has been prolapsing, sliding out, a little bit more and more as she grows and gets bigger. The risk is that it will slide out so much, that she will start to lose blood supply and that tissue will start to die. Dr. Kurnow doesn't feel like the benefits of waiting until Ruby is 3 kilograms outweigh the risks of complications involved with waiting until her bowel tissue is not as healthy. So we made the decision and we're going to surgery to put Ruby back together on Thursday. Russell and I both feel really good about the decision, in fact, when I got home, Russell literally did a dance. This will likely get her home a couple weeks earlier than we thought.

A little advance warning: tomorrow, I'm going to post a picture of Ruby's stoma. It is basically about an inch of her guts that comes out of a small incision on her stomach. Heads up.