Happy 4th Abby

Happy 4th of July weekend friends. Kelly and I are here at Camp Abby in the NICU where not too much is going on, which is a good thing. She is still in her big girl crib, she is maintaining her temperature well and she is still accepting her feedings well through the feeding tube down her nose. She is having some reflux though after her feedings. It’s not that big of a deal for a full size baby to spit up most of the time, but for Abby, when she spits up, it’s a big deal simply because she needs EVERY CALORIE we give her. Yesterday she did well with this and didn’t spit up once. She is still around 3 and a half lbs, and maybe even a little bit more.

I haven’t spoken too much about her shunt lately and somebody asked me how that was going. It’s working very well and there haven’t been any problems with it. The shunts job as a reminder is to drain the CSF, or Cerebral Spinal Fluid that gets produced in Abby’s brain to her abdomen. Abby’s brain bleed at birth has blocked the passageways that allow the CSF to leave the brain area to the spine, which is why the shunt is there. Without it, her head would blow up like a balloon with all the CSF. The shunt is still very visible in the back of her head but as she grows older and grows some hair it won’t be noticeable. I still pray that someday, somehow, someway, Abby won’t need the shunt at all anymore. That would be quite a miracle!

Abby is still working on the suck, swallow, breathe coordination this weekend. She is doing a bit better than previous attempts but there is still a lot of room to grow in this regard. I am happy though that there are moments when she does coordinate it all, so I am hopeful that she will get it down soon.

We just called in this morning to check on Abby to find that she has been moved to another room in the NICU. We were super bummed! Not cool man. We have become friends with the parents of Luke who is right next to Abby, we know all the nurses there and quite frankly Abby is the life of the party these days. Now we’re back in the quiet part of the NICU. The good news is that she is back there because she’s doing well and they need Abby’s old spot for a more critical baby. But still, we’ve become very close to everyone and very used to that room so we’re sad to leave. Yeah yeah, look at the bright side…she’s healthy enough to even leave that room so we should be happy and blah blah blah. I know, I got it! And I'm sure we'll get used to it.

So to recap:
Temperature = good
Eating = good
Growing = good
Shunt Function = good
Breast Feeding = okay, could still be better.
Cute scale = OFF THE STINKIN’ CHARTS!!!!!! CHECK HER OUT.
We love you guys.

Have a SAFE AND FUN 4th of July! We’ll gladly let this one pass us by as we cuddle with our Abby and look forward to next year and getting out and about with all of you.