The Doc's are Finally Talking About Home

This morning was the 1st morning that the NICU doctors have started talking about going home.

I've met with the discharge nurse 2 times now and she's getting us a list of the equipment we'll need for Payton when we leave. It may take a while to arrange things so the sooner the better.

I'm not sure what time yesterday they removed Payton's PICC line but today (hopefully for the last time ever) Payton is PICC free.

She's also on day 4 of having her G-tube clamped and I'm hoping that means we can start giving her more breastmilk orally. We're waiting on surgery for that one.

The other thing we're waiting for surgery is to see if we can give Payton a bath. The healing from her incision may prevent it still even though its been 3 weeks since her surgery there's still a lot of granulation tissue present so it may be that we have to wait a bit more.

In other news Payton hasn't puked since I held her 2 days ago (yay Payton) so there's no doubt she's tolerating the clamped tube and the very small amounts of breastmilk she is getting. I think its time we start challenging that little one with her feeds.

It would be nice for her if she could take more milk orally since she hasn't had much for tasting things on her tongue. She loves the small amounts she does get so we know so far she won't have oral adversions (right now its just stomach adversions).

Much like Dwayne has me on an exercise boot camp, I've put Payton on one (we don't have to worry about Livy, she does her own boot camp). Payton and I have been working on her neck muscles now that her incision is better. She's about as strong as a newborn (not a 7 week old baby) and admittely its weird because she looks like a big strong baby, she just isn't. Livy at 6 weeks had really good control of her head and neck so Payton is a little bit behind the curve.

As for weight gain, Payton's sitting at about 8lbs 10 oz (about what Livy weighed when born). Hopefully upping her oral treats through the day will be enough to start packing the weight on this little one. The fact that Payton has poops to rival her Dad shows that her bowels are working just fine thus adding a bit more nutrition (even in her tender little tummy) should go over well.

Here's a picture of Payton when I arrived yesterday hanging in a bouncy vibrating chair listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean - I don't know why we thought to get her used to soothing sounds...when she comes home she'll have to get used to 2 dogs, Livy and Dwayne and I...more like a raging hurricane :)  All good, she's a Kress/Brickner - she'll be able to handle anything we throw at her.