Oh my goodness!!  She's 4lbs 1oz now!  My dad joked and said she's gained 25% of her body weight.  I had to pause and then laugh.  She really has!  1lb doesn't seem like much to anyone, but when it's 1lb on a Preemie, it's HUGE!  Her little neighbor is almost to 3lbs (Addy's starting weight) and I look at her and think Addy could of NEVER been that little, but then I look at pictures..and sure enough...she was. 

Sunday
On Sunday, Addy weighed in at 3lb 15.?oz.  We weren't there for the weigh-in.  With bottlefeeding (and some of her past few nurses that don't push her as much as other nurses - a rant for later..), they have moved her schedule around a little so we never know when she gets a bath and gets weighed at night right now.  They have been saving the bottlefeeds for me.  I do the Noon and the 9pm and then she does a 3am feed.  I have fed a LOT of baby bottles before, but feeding a Preemie is ENTIRELY different!  There are about 10 little techniques are trying to coordinate all at the same time, while making sure she is sucking, swallowing, and breathing, and not getting ready to choke or do any of the "fake" things babies do to scare you 1/2 to death as it is.  It's a learning road for mom and baby!  Hopefully I can get her to start taking her entire bottle soon so that Daddy can see how difficult it is!  He's going to have to learn soon...

They also checked her eyes on Sunday.  Preemies have a tendency of ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity).  There are different things that increase your chances of this.  But basically it damages the blood vessels to the retina (the part of the eye that acts like a camera - it takes the picture and allows you to see).  Things such as ventilation, severe prematurity, and other things increase the chances of this.  Less than 5% of babies have severe ROP which leads to severe sight issues (it can cause blindness).  Since Addy wasn't necessarily severely premature (don't get me wrong - under 30 weeks is VERY premature, but they see 23 and 24 weekers in there now too!), and she was only temporarily ventilated to receive surfactant, her eyes checked out okay.  I am a bit concerned that they said they'd re-check her in 2 weeks, as the original nurse told me they'd check her at 4 weeks old (that was this appt) and then again before she left.  I wonder if they are just guessing she'll be going home in 2-3 weeks or if they are guessing that she has a possible small retinal damage that might require a quick, easy laser surgery before she goes home... quick and painless honestly...  I sort of doubt she'll need surgery of any kind, I think it'll simply be a check-up.  But, a mom has to wonder..right?

We also discovered that she likes her 3am feeds!!  Seriously, she bottle feeds her entire bottle for the nurse at 3am.  The nurses are joking we might have a little "night owl" on our hands!  I've considered re-working my schedule a bit to be there at 3am to see if it's the nurse or if it's me.  But, I've bottlefed her and then handed her to a nurse to see if the nurse can do any good and the nurses all look at me and say.. you're doing fine, so who knows? 

My mom and I started working on her nursery.  Needless to say, we did NOT get finished!!  My mom laughed when she saw all the clothes and just the assortment of stuff this little girl has!  What she forgot to remind herself was.. we've been shopping for her for 15 weeks.. and we had the baby shower FIVE days before delivery....so.. it was all just crammed in her room for the moment in some form of organized caosis!  So, we got a dent put in it...and we'll finish the rest this weekend...

Here's some fun photos:

Can you find Grandma??  Do we look at all organized here???  Maybe another day...
  

OHHHH!! Mommy caught Daddy SMILING!!  Put this one in the record books please!


I didn't feel like sucking the rest of my formula out of a bottle, so the nurse got the rest in a tube and Daddy pushed some out of the tube for me every few minutes.  Gosh this is a tough life!



Monday
Well, Monday I figured out a NEW game plan.  I'm not sure how it's going to work, but I'm going to try it.  I've been packing up things to work on and just spending my day at the hospital.  I go for her noon feeding for about 1-2 hours, then go get lunch and then work on some things for about 4 hours and then I go back for about 30min to and hour, and then I do whatever the evening schedule has on it.  Then, Charley comes with me or my mom, depending on Charley's work schedule, and we go up for her 9pm feed and bathtime.  I actually got something DONE yesterday.  Granted, my house is a DISASTER, so I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow and clean the house for 2 hours before I do that little schedule, but it worked great.  I finally felt like I did something else besides drive to and from the hospital..  Plus, I have a friend on hospital bedrest (she's expecting twins the same day I was!) and I hop over there for a few minutes every so often to make sure she's doing well.. 

As for Miss Addy, she took her 3am feed completely again, she took her 10ccs on her 12pm feed, 20ccs on her 9pm feed, and we just found out this morning that she took her 3am feed (Tuesday morning) all 35ccs!!!  Some changes in her diet are that they have bumped her formula back to EnfaCare22.  She was on Preemie24.  The difference here is that there is 2 less calories in her formula now, as she obviously doesn't need it, but it stll has all the right essentials for Preemies. It is the WORST smelling formula ever...  Her nurse last night said they should send that over to Iraq for all the bad guys to drink.. it's enough to kill someone!  She said wait until you smell her poop...oh joy!  But, we are glad we are formula feeding.  That was a tough decision that was thrown at me in the beginning, being told it would not be recommended to breastfeed while pregnant.  I couldn't imagine having to worry about pumping for her right now, having to teach her a bottle to ensure she's feeding, and then having to get her to figure out how to nurse.  Plus, she wouldn't be able to get all the wonderful nutrients and extra calories as easily.  It's made life easier.  They fortify breastmilk in the NICU to give them the extra calories, but the main thing they take from breast milk besides nutrients is their mother's immune system.  Problem is.. my immune system is HORRID!  So, passing that along to her is not necessarily a good thing...

She weighed in at 4lb 1oz today, but it could begin to slow down a bit.  Once she gets to an open crib, she'll have to work harder to maintain temperature and breathe.  She is off her cannula, except for bottle feeding and she does not START with her cannula.  She simply gets it when she needs it.  When we have her outside her isolette, we see how she does without her cannula first, and then she gets it if she needs it.  You can tell because she turns a little pale and her oxygen saturation rates go from 89-100 (normal) to hovering the 70s and below.  A few times she dropped to the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  But we got her a little O2 and she was fine.  Most of the time, she simply just gets low-flow pressure in her nose, but they do have her on around 30% at 1/4L of O2 while eating.  That is hard work though, so that is the reason.  Eventually, she'll work it all out...

She also had an echo of her heart yesterday.  On Friday, the nurse found a heart murmur, but the doctor didn't.  That night, her night nurse found it.  On Saturday, the weekend doctor heard it and she ordered an echo for Monday.  Charley happened to be there and leaving just before they started the ultrasound of her heart, and I happened to be in there when the doctor that reads the reports was there.  They found a small PDA.  (I'll look up how to spell that one later).  But, basically there is an extra valve that closes in newborns shortly after birth.  With Preemies, it never had a chance to close.  Most of the time, it just needs watched and it'll close in time.  Sometimes, they have to give some medicine for it to close, and sometimes it needs a minor heart surgery to close it.  The doctor said she's still small and she wasn't worried about a small PDA right now, especially since her little heart was perfect besides the PDA.  They said they'd check her again before discharge and if it wasn't closed then, then we'd talk about it and do follow-up care.  Again, mainly monitoring.  From what I understand, if it doesn't close in 6 months to a year, then that is when it could require a surgery.  Certainly not what we want, but the docs and nurses all seem very unconcerned with it.  As we learned from Reagan's problem, if it were a true problem to worry about right now, they'd tell us bluntly what it was and what to expect.  So, no worries right now, but we do hope and pray everything keeps moving forward in on a positive note!

Here are a few pics from Monday as well...

HI WORLD! My name is Addison Maria and I HAVE NO TUBES!!!!!!!!  (We'll briefly...I'll get a new feeding tube in my nose in a few minutes).


Mommy caught me having a little conversation with sissy here!  All she did was lay my sideways in my incubator to get me ready to get out and my eyes caught hold of her picture... (Just so you know, that dangling picture of Reagan has an angel above it that says "Guardian Angel"  Barb H., a good bowling buddy of ours gave that to us in the hospital.  It's been in her isolette with Reagan's picture since we got it!  Looks like Reagan is keeping watch over Addy, as she's doing FAR better than most 29weekers!)


OOPS! I got caught!   My cheeks look REALLY full here, but they aren't THAT full in person!  I am beginning to fill in though..and man oh man do I look like Daddy!  I'm most certainly a Burge!  I got mommy's fingers and toes...and I think that's it!


A note: I keep mentioning that Addy was 29weeks.  She really was 29weeks and 2days (Or 29w2d) when she was born.  All our ultrasounds said 30weeks (long story), but by In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) dates, these little girls were only 29weekers and did NOT get the benefit of steroid shots for their lungs..and Addy is doing PHENOMENAL!  This means she started bottle feeding at 32w2d!!  She shouldn't even be able to do that until 34-36 weeks!

Oh, and just for fun...
I got an email from my blog/website support this morning.  Looks like I've exceeded the bandwidth limits for the month!    So, I've got to pay a little extra.  I found it very reassuring.  To all those non-webby people, it means that I have a BIG website and LOTS of people are using it!   Thanks for keeping up on us.. we sure do appreciate all the love, support, and prayers....  We can't wait to show off Addy FOR REAL!