All About Evie

Little Evie is still in the NICU. When Sharon was discharged last Thursday, we thought she could possibly come home on Sunday, but she will be staying there for the immediate future while the doctors monitor her weight gain. As you can see in the photos, she now has a feeding tube that runs through her nose, down her throat and into her tummy. It's very thin and flexible, and she doesn't seem to notice it at all. We have visited her every day in the afternoon, around a feeding time so that we can give her one of her bottles, and Sharon also does a little Kangaroo Care with Evie.

She will usually take part of a bottle, but she's such a poky eater that she usually falls asleep before finishing it, so the rest of the formula is delivered through the tube. She is also on a diuretic drug called Lasix, to to decrease the amount of fluid in her lungs. She had gained 45 grams, but then lost 50 grams (probably from the diuretic, which increases the production of urine).

The whole set of photos from the weekend visits are here.



She has three monitors attached to her, which measure her heart rate, breaths per minute, and the oxygen saturation level in her blood.



So sleepy! The nurses tell us her longest periods of wakefulness are in the morning. She is usually zonked out by the time we see her. She is usually awake along enough for her to take most of a bottle.



Here's a short video clip:

The nurses tell us that whenever Evie wakes up she is frantic for her feeding. When we visited on Sunday, she was hungry when we woke her up that she tried to eat her burp cloth! :)

Evie makes the cutest little faces and constantly sticks her tongue out.

Our friend Gina Goodbread was working again on Saturday, and stopped in for a visit. If you're been reading this blog since the beginning, you'll remember that she was Gavin's delivery room nurse. The OB nurses work 12 hours shifts and have a few days off in between.

Here's Sharon doing the Kangaroo Care with Evie, which is essentially "skin to skin" contact between mommy (or daddy) and baby. Evie just snuggles right in for nap every time!

Again with the faces (so cute!).