Ava had her NG tube removed last night around 9:15. One more thing eliminated....Yay!! We were so excited to see our baby girl with out any lines/tubes attached to her face. So of course we had to document it with a few photos! She's still hooked up to the monitor, but those were hidden under her gown. Here are a few of our first "normal" baby photos...
Last night didn't go as well as we had hoped. Ava decided she would rather sleep than eat. We spent about 1.5 hours at each feed just to get 15 minutes of actual eating. We tried everything...changing her diaper, rubbing her foot, back, ribs, checks, etc, cold wash clothes, you name it we tried it. We even tried two different bottles, but she didn't take to that either. Needless to say, we all worked really hard to get our baby girl to eat. Her 12:00 am feed was the best...she ate for 16 minutes in about a 30 minute time period.
Dr. Lightburn came in around 9:00 this morning to re-assess Miss Ava. Her respiration rates continue to be good, so no issues there. Ava has lost some weight since birth...her birth weight was 5 lbs 8 oz, yesterday she was 5 lbs 4 oz, and today she weighed in at 5 lbs 2 oz. They are not super concerned about the weight loss because she hasn't lost more that 10% of her birth weight. The main concern/issue now is her bilirubin levels. They have been increasing gradually over the past few days, but they peaked this morning at 17.5. Because of this increased bilirubin level, Ava now requires phototherapy for the next 24 hours....which means she's not getting discharged today. Dr. Lightburn feels that her levels will be low enough after 24 hours of phototherapy and that she will be able to discharge tomorrow. This is not exactly what we were hoping for but we're glad everything is being addressed before she's discharged.
putting her shades on before starting phototherapy... I thought this would upset her, but she really didn't seem to mind
Sunbathing...
Once we got Ava going on her phototherapy, we ran home to see Owen. He's really been missing his mommy and daddy. We only had 1.5 hours, but we played with cars, had lots of races, and got dressed and ready for the day. Papa Bart and Gigi took him and Honey to the park just as we were heading back to the hospital, so he really didn't care that we were leaving. He still hasn't been able to meet Ava, so he's having a hard time understanding why mommy and daddy are gone all the time....but he's definitely getting tons of attention and being completely spoiled by the grandparents.
ready to go...
This is how we found Ava when we got back to the hospital...just snoozing!
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