NICU- Day 4

Today has been an INCREDIBLE day!  Audrey has had a wonderful day- she began by having her IV capped off and then later removed- they completely stopped giving her supplementary fluids and she will get everything she needs from her bottles of expressed milk OR....another great option, nursing!  She nursed twice today and did a FANTASTIC job both times- kept her O2 saturations up, respirations slower and steadier, and heartrate perfect.  I was so proud of her!

Also, she is only on room air (21% oxygen) through her nasal cannula and over the course of today the flow has been lowered from 2L down to 1.75 and then later to 1.5L...so she's not getting any supplementary oxygen and the flow through the tube is decreasing all the time.  She is still holding her own and having great saturations!

Her bilirubin numbers came down as well, so they took her out of the "bat cave" and put her on a biliblanket instead.  This morning her bili level was lower than where they originally even got concerned so I assume she will probably get to quit phototherapy tomorrow sometime. 

Look at all her hair!

As long as she tolerates her feedings well she may move to a more liberal feeding schedule in which she is allowed to have however much she wants as long as it meets a minimum requirement.  This will be better than having her feeds increased by 1mL every 3 hours because it can potentially show the doctors that she can handle bigger feedings (we're weighing her before and after nursing to find out how much she is getting) and so they don't need to be so concerned with the amount. 

All in all, it was a tremendous day!  We are so thankful to everyone who is sending positive thoughts our way and thinking about our precious girl.  Hopefully we can bring her home soon!