Counting down the days

April 28th - May 2 Updates

Feeding tube stayed in a couple days.

Matti's echo showed she has two holes "in her heart", not surprising as we were already aware of the one.  They are "small" and "tiny" (yeah, that's the medical terms used).  We mentioned before that many newborns have these holes in their hearts when they are born and they close soon after birth on their own.  They aren't causing her any trouble so we're playing the wait and see game.  She'll have regularly scheduled echocardiograms to keep an eye on them.

No hearing exams again until she's two.  Unless we feel she needs one earlier.

Third eye exam showed no ROP (the thing that caused blindness in premies) but still immature blood vessels so she's still at risk for developing ROP.  So regularly scheduled eye exams every 2 weeks.

Mama came in this week to see that Matti had lost a BUNCH of weight down to 4# 6oz.  The conversation with the nurse went like this:

    Mama (said with concern) : "So are we [the doctors, nurses, etc] concerned about her weight?"
    Nurse (said with enthusiasm) : "Yeah, I couldn't believe it!"
    Mama (said with confusion) : "That was like a half pound difference."
    Nurse (enthusiastic still) : "Yeah! That was great!"
    Mama (puzzled as hell) : "I'm confused.  She went down half a pound."
    Nurse (puzzled as hell) : "WHAAATTT?"
    [Lightbulb goes on]
    Nurse (much calmer) : "Aha!  The night nurse miscalculated from kilograms to pounds and ounces.  She         went UP half a pound."
    Mama (needs a glass of wine) : "Aha.  Ok.  So we probably didn't lose weight the last couple days.  She       probably was mis-weighed and now is almost 5 and a half pounds.  Whew."

We are getting closer to going home.  We're talking days now instead of weeks!