3 weeks old

Little Tahnee is already 3 weeks old (and 1 day)! Time seems to be flying in one sense, but going slow in another. She continues to do well and make progress :)

Today I was able to get to the hospital before the doctors had done their daily wad round and assessment of Tahnee. When they arrived at her cot, they asked for an update and I was able to report that she had had minimal aspirates overnight and she was also taking well to the 5mls of milk she was getting every 4 hours (in addition to her continuous milk feed). These small amounts of milk are to encourage the suck&swallow rhythm. Tahnee is also having regular wet and dirty nappies as well, which indicate her bowels are working well.

The doctors then conferred and decided that since she was almost receiving the correct volume of continuous milk flow for her body weight and was tolerating it well, that they would start to wean her off the continuous and switch to getting feeds every 2 hours instead!! This is another step in the right direction :) Basically it means that over the next 24 hours they will wean her and start giving her feeds through her nasal gastric tube. The doctors also want us to alternate her method of feeding - one suck feed from either a bottle or breast and one tube feed. The reason they aren't going straight to full suck feeds is that it would require too much energy and she would start to burn fat and therefore lose weight.

Now, as a result of coming off her continuous feeds, Tahnee no longer needs to receive fats and fluids through her long line (IV in her arm), so that should have been taken out this afternoon :) Now she is down to 2 tubes: the nasal gastric in her nose and a sats monitor to measure her oxygen levels which is a probe attached to her foot. Almost tube free  :)

Feedback from the doctors has all been positive and Tahnee continues to make all the right steps towards coming home. Her challenge still remains to get to full breast/bottle feeds before being discharged and allowed to come home!!

p.s. Lucas LOVES seeing photos of Tahnee and saying her name...its very cute :) Whenever he is asked where she is, he turns to point at a gorgeous scrapbooked, framed photo that was kindly made as a surprise for me by my sister-in-law Rachel and is hanging on our wall.