October 15th

Today Kate was turned back down to a 5 on her oxygen flow and did great on it.  She had less swinging than she did over the weekend when she was at a 5.  When the doctor called this morning he said Kate was talked about in their "Meeting of the Minds" this morning.  This is a meeting where all the NICU doctors meet and discuss the babies and any concerns.  There are two different approaches that have been taken with Kate over the past few weeks.  Kate has a few different doctors that she changes between  depending who is working that day.  Often times she will have the same doctor for 2-3 days.  The doctors sometimes have their own differing opinions on care, which can change things around for her  a little.  When they meet together they discuss the best care for the baby and try to keep all the doctors on the same page.  This morning when they talked about Kate they discussed whether she should be given time to get stronger on the Hi-Flow and slowly wean her as she's ready or should she continue to have an aggressive approach on weaning her oxygen settings down.  They came to the conclusion to be aggressive and they would try to take a step each day by lowering her settings to see how she does on it.  If she swings and has a lot of apneas she will return to the previous setting.  The doctor warned me I will probably see a lot of ups and downs with this, but it's not really anything to worry about.  She is still doing so good for her age.  Sometimes one of the concerns with preemies being on the Hi-Flow for this long is that they get very gassy tummies from all the air.  Kate has not had this problem, which makes it easier for the doctors not to worry so much about getting her off of the Hi-Flow as quickly. One of the reasons they do want to get her off is that by her age of 34 weeks we can start attempting to bottle feed her if she is on the nasal cannula (2 1/2 weeks away).  I'm so excited for this to happen!  Eating will hopefully be her last battle- but it can also be one of the hardest battles for preemies.  They usually have aversions to things in their mouth after having so many tubes being stuck down their throat.  The quicker she learns how to eat, the quicker she comes home:)