Up and About

Around 3 pm, we were told that Peeper would have to stay on one of her medications that we thought she was going to be off of this evening. That medication required an arterial line, which was what was keeping us from moving her around and holding her.

Then, the nurse practitioner who is managing her care talked the cardiologist into letting her pull the arterial line, after all, and around 6 pm, Shrike was able to hold her and give her a bottle of breastmilk, and when they were finished, I held her for a while.

They still want to keep a close eye on how much she's eating, but I've been told that I will be allowed to nurse her once this evening.

Shrike plans to stay at the hospital til around 10 pm, so she's going to give her the next bottle, at 9ish, and then I will nurse her later, when I'm the only one here.

I'm hoping I can talk them into more nursing, sooner rather than later, but they do have their rules.

A couple of thoughts on that, though - they are only measuring input, not output, because they pulled her Foley catheter at the same time as the arterial line, and also, a NICU nurse pointed out to me that they determine intake with before/after weights all the time - so I might ask if we can do that.

We're exhausted, and I'm supposed to be taking a little nap right now, but we are very, very happy with how she's doing.