I'm still singing that song this Christmas season, but every once in a while, I throw in a little "I'll Be Home for Christmas." But I sing that in the NICU when I'm sitting with Phoebe. I'm just trying to subtly get her on board with the idea of being home for the holidays. Because it is totally up to her. I tried to explain to her that there's this big family holiday coming up and wouldn't it be wonderful if all four of my kids could be home for it. I told her about Santa and stockings, about our traditional Christmas Eve finger foods dinner, about how Chris and I take turns eating her advent calendar chocolate, about how it's taken us a whole week just to get the tree in the living room and the lights on it and that hopefully we'll get the ornaments on by December 25. Of course, she could care less about all that and just wants me to focus on feeding her. So I sing "I'll Be Home for Christmas" as my personal way of brain-washing my little preemie into stopping these silly bradys so she can come home. Am I slowly losing it? Yeah, maybe. :-)
But back to Phoebe: she continues to do very well. She's now eating as much as she wants (up to 2 oz) every 4 hours. She moved from 24 calories/ml formula to 22 cal/ml. Her body temp has been good. Her CBC came back on Friday and showed that her blood count is on the rise and her anemia is slowly improving. She is now 5 lbs 3 oz. She hasn't gained any weight since Friday, which was also the day her formula changed and she moved to 4 hour feedings, so they aren't too concerned with that. Her blood oxygen levels have been good for a while, so today they removed her from the pulse ox monitor. All in all, she's just doing fantastic.
Except for those bradys! I haven't checked in with her nurse in about 6 hours, but the last brady I know about was Saturday evening around 7:30. She dipped pretty low on this one, into the 40s, and needed some mild stimulation to come back up. Lately, all of her bradys have been self-stimulated, so this mild-stim one was a little surprising. Dr. Lantzy said he wasn't sure what to make of it and that we'd just watch and wait. At this point, her bradys are the only thing keeping her in the hospital. And I'm trying to keep things in perspective: if she has to stay in the hospital for Christmas, it really will be OK. Her growing in a safe environment is more important than anything else right now.
So our prayer request: please pray that her body gets about its work and that she does not have any more episodes of bradycardia. Please also pray that her anemia continues to improve. She has another neuroscan today (Monday) so please throw in some prayers for that to have all good results as well. Thank you!!
This past Friday, one of the sweet girls who babysits for us occasionally watched the boys so Chris and I could go to the hospital together for a while and then sneak in a quick date for our anniversary. Chris got to feed Phoebe for the first time in a while and I realized that I am going to have major sharing issues when she comes home. Then on Saturday, we took the boys downtown for a little Christmas outing to see the sights. It was a beautiful day and everyone had a lot of fun.
That night, Joshua slept over at a friend's house. It sounds like they had a lot of fun, but Joshua did get a little blue at bedtime and want to call home. I think he's processing Phoebe's hospitalization in his own way. It's good for me to remember that this journey is affecting the boys as well.
When we were eating lunch on Saturday, two different waitresses commented about me being a mom of three boys. When I told the first one about Phoebe, I suddenly realized I am no longer a mom of all boys. I have a daughter! There is pink in my house! Whoa. :-)
As always, thank you so much for your prayers for our little preemie and for your encouragement and support for me and Chris!
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