Finger Painting

We took the whole family up to see Kate today.  They become quiet the crowd in the waiting room as they wait their turn to go in and see her.  They are all so excited to see the changes in her growth and get a glimpse of her moving around a little.  Kinnli really wants to hear her cry, but she didn't get to today. Kate has finally gained enough muscle to control her legs and arms.  She can lie still for a minute very calmly without being swaddled.  Before her legs and arms would flail out of control and make her very agitated.  Today she just laid there as she opened her eyes and looked at each of the kids. 

Kate was turned down to a 3 on her oxygen flow yesterday.  She has surprised me by staying stable enough to maintain it so far.  It's a little bit questionable still because she has more periodic breathing and jumps to a really fast respiratory rate to make up for it.  So she might need to be turned back to a 4 before too long.  For this reason I only held her for a short time.  I didn't want to wear her out and holding her is still pretty hard on her. 

Each baby has a "recipe" for the milk they receive to meet their individual needs.  It takes a lot of math skills for the nurses to figure it out and combine just the right amount of ingredients.  Kate's recipe is a pretty complicated one.  She is getting about 33ml of fluid per feeding every 3 hrs. In each feeding she receives about 20 ml of my milk, and then liquid protein, Nutramigen concentrate, calcium, iron,  & phosphorus are all added to it.  As she grows the amounts are constantly changing.  She also receives caffeine on a daily basis.  It is a stimulant for her heart and breathing.  Back when Kate was first born and they started her on caffeine the doctor told me that it has the best effect on the baby if their mother did not drink much caffeine while pregnant. He said some babies come to the NICU addicted to caffeine and they actually have withdrawals from it. The caffeine given to them as medicine does not work as well on them.  This made me grateful that I'm not much of a pop drinker- it just doesn't appeal to me very often. 

I wrote in the last post that Kate received a glycerin enema.  Yesterday the nurse told me that Kate had a complete blowout that night and she decided to try finger painting with it.  The nurse started changing her diaper and turned around to get something, when she looked back at Kate she had poop smeared across all the tubes on her face, all over the bedding and squished between her fingers.  She had to have a complete makeover!  She was given a bath, her nasal cannula and feeding tube had to be cleaned and re-taped, all her bedding needed changed. But luckily she didn't try to eat any! The nurses got a good laugh and now she is called the "Wilde Child". I told Kale that Kate is already following in his footsteps (Kale pointed out to me that there names are almost the same if the "t" was changed to a "l").  There was a time that Kale took up finger painting too.  I remember this vividly because it was so traumatic since Kam had just barely been born and was in the NICU.  It was one of those days that almost broke me.  Kale was only 15 months old and he was wearing overalls.  I was in the kitchen when Kale walked in with poop on his face, in his hair, on his clothes and all over his hands- the worst part.... it was in his mouth.  He decided to  give it a taste!  He must have stuck his arm down through the top of his overalls and into his diaper to investigate.  I don't think I put him in overalls anymore after that!

This is Kale in his infamous overalls 1 month before Kam was born (2005).

 

 

I love when the nurses dress Kate and put bows in her hair.  (She had a onsie on just before this picture that color coordinated with her bows.)  It makes me feel like they are treating her like a real baby rather than just a baby in a box.