All about Jaisal and Riya: NICU

We had a couple conversations with the NICU doctors before Riya was born. So many questions about stats, risks, and course of care. There were so many good stats based on the fact that she was 29w gestation (and so many scary ones as well). The best news we got, repeatedly, was that her outcome was likely going to be better because she was a girl. Yay girls!

Now that we were officially in the NICU, we rehashed all the details about what to expect with the doctors. Riya's struggles were going to be:

breathing on her own, without too many episodes of apnea or bradycardia,
ability to digest food and eat while being able to breathe on her own,
maintain her body temperature, and
gain weight consistently.

The doctors said to expect that she will need at least 8 weeks to hit all these hurdles, but could take until or past her original due date (June 15, 2015).

Over the last week, she's done fabulously making progress on most of these goals. She started out on bipap and has been moved over to cpap. The pressure has been progressively decreased and we hope that later this week she'll move over to high flow cannula. She's had no episodes or apnea or bradycardia though that could change.

She's also been able to start feeds of my breast milk through a tube that goes to her stomach. With preemies, the concern is that the intestines are too immature to digest food. She's been handling her feeds well and they've been steadily increasing the amount she receives. Right now she gets 16 ml of milk every 3 hours. Full feeds will be around 26 ml in that same period and we hope to reach that amount in the next week or so. When and if Riya reaches full feeds, she'll stop receiving supplemental nutrition through her central line (and probably result in the removal of the central line). There are still some risks to the health of her intestines that we'll watch carefully over the next month, but overall this is great news. It also should help with her newborn jaundice so that she won't need to spend any more time under the phototherapy lights.

Riya is almost back to her birth weight and we hope she keeps gaining consistently. The bigger she gets, the better she'll be at regulating her temp. Right now she's in an isolette that keeps her cozy and warm. We also do kangaroo care daily, which should help with regulating her breathing and maintaining body temperature. Plus I just love getting to hold her and snuggle with her.