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Remember this from Halloween?

Well Cameron is once again channeling her inner giraffe!

Cam's first halloween!

Needless to say, she looked super cute in her costume. We couldn't keep it on for very long and she was being a super sleepy baby but here are the pics:

Other than that today was just alright... it seemed to be going very well in the beginning but then things got really frustrating. This morning her doctor told me he feels she is ready to be taken off the CPAP!!! Woohoo! I wasn't expecting it this early but he is going to do it tomorrow (November 1st). I really, really, really want this to work but I am preparing myself for disappointment. I know he wouldn't do it if he didn't think she was ready but the pessimist in me can't help but expect that she will end up back on the CPAP within a couple of days. I guess the NICU does that to you.

Her doctor is also hoping that she will be on bottles in about two and half weeks. That was pretty exciting but the rule of thumb is that the baby needs to weigh about 3 lb 5 oz before the bottle. He said that he may start her a bit before that since she is gaining a little slower than average but would like her to be somewhat close. I was very hopeful, assuming that when I went in later tonight she would be up an ounce. Not the case, she was down over half an ounce. Again. She has been sitting at 2 lb 9 oz for the longest time. She had gone up to 2 lb 10 oz again on Sunday night and then back down to 2 lb 9 oz tonight for the third time. It starts to feel like she will never gain a substantial amount of weight. And then the respiratory therapist told me not to be surprised if she loses weight once she comes off the CPAP since she'll be doing more work herself and burning more calories. Wonderful. It's so sad to me that if I was still pregnant she would easily be over 4 lbs by now.

And to add to all this, Josh has a cold. He couldn't come see her in her costume so he was really bummed. And then that gives me about a 0% chance of not getting it, meaning I won't be able to go see her for at least 3 or 4 days which is a pretty horrible feeling. I don't know what I am going to do with myself during those couple of days. I'm dreading waking up one morning with a sore throat :(

So nothing truly terrible happened today and we do have some good things to look forward to but sometimes it is so hard not to get caught up in the little things. I can't stand the back and forth of her weight. It drives me crazy. And if I get sick I will be so upset but we shall see. For now I'm keeping my fingers crossed I don't get Josh's cold (not gonna happen) and that Cameron transitions to the CPAP wonderfully!!!

A big day and a big post

In the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to share something I thought was really cool!! I love the movie Nightmare Before Christmas so I chose this song but this family does a bunch of others like Monster Mash and Thriller.

Anyways, the doctor did a bunch of things with Cameron today that I'm really excited about. First and foremost, he fiiiinnnnallllyyy took her off of the BiPap and put her back on the regular CPAP. Of course she's doing just fine with it as I knew she would, they definitely could have done it a while ago but they were just being cautious which I understand. They want to give her plenty of time and don't want to push her too far. He said it would be at least a week before he would think about taking her off of CPAP but I'm positive it will be longer than that for the same reason it took so long on the BiPap.

They drew a ton of labs to check a bunch of things that are routine at her age. Her hematocrit and other blood counts came back normal so they took her off the epogen! No blood transfusions for Cameron woohoooo!!!! These are SO common and rarely does a preemie Cam's age escape them but there are risks involved with transfusions so the doctors at our NICU like to try and see if epogen will work first because it is far less invasive. And it worked!!! As you can tell I am reeeaally excited about this :) She may need to go back on the epogen at some point but they say the older she gets the better it will work for her so I think it is safe to say we got through the NICU transfusion free!

We are making good headway on her feedings, they are increasing them in larger amounts and in increased frequencies. She continues to tolerate them really well. By Friday she will be getting all her nutrition through breast milk and get her PICC line out. This is big too because whenever a preemie has a PICC line there is always a threat of infection. So far she has remained infection free and as soon as her PICC comes out her chances of staying infection free greatly increase.

Aaaaand she is up to 2 lb 7.5 ounces, SO close to 2.5 pounds! She got her lasix today so no telling if she'll gain tonight but I really really hope she hits the two and half pound mark. About the lasix, her labs today showed her potassium getting low again so her doctor started her on another medication. The way he explained it to me, which makes complete sense, is that if they keep replacing her potassium, which they have to do through IV fluids, it defeats the purpose. Essentially they are giving her lasix so that she can get rid of extra fluids but then they are giving it right back when they give her the potassium. So what he did is start her on a medication called aldactone. This is a potassium-sparing diuretic, meaning it helps her get rid of extra fluid while preventing the loss of potassium into her urine. Hoping that works for her but I really wish this PDA would just close already!!

Lastly, how about a Cameron photo dump? I took a bunch of pictures the other day and she was just looking so cute I had to post them :) Don't mind the stuff on and under her nose, it's a gentle dressing they put on to protect her fragile skin from the CPAP mask. And that's her feeding tube if you didn't know.

Big yawn!

Look at all that hair!!
And the tape on her arm is for her PICC line, coming off soon,
I can't wait!! One less cord, one less thing bugging her :)

"Mommy what are you doing back there??"

Love those eyes

Happy baby :D
Not sure if she's really smiling but she sure looks cute!

"Not so close Mom!"
(my flash was off by the way)

Such a perfect face!
I will say I think she's looking a heck of a lot like Daddy...

For Halloween. . .

...Cameron is going to be a giraffe! I couldn't not dress her up for her very first Halloween. I wasn't quite sure where on earth I was going to get a "costume" small enough for her. It's not like they sell costumes in stores for a two and a half pound baby. I found a woman on etsy.com who crochets hats for preemies (and all other sizes too). Almost all the preemie sized hats I found are for babies around five pounds but she does custom sizes for babies anywhere from 1-6 pounds. I got Cameron's giraffe hat in the mail today and it's super cute! It looked pretty big and I thought it would be huge on Cam so we tried it on her while we were there today. It actually fit perfectly, and let me tell you it was beyond adorable so I'm really excited to have her wear it on Halloween! When we go to visit her that night we are going to take a bunch of pictures and all that good stuff. I can't wait!!

Cam's giraffe "costume"!!

As far as everything else, she kept having those same oxygen desaturation spells so they put her back on the lasix yesterday. They are going to keep her on it every other day and hopefully if her potassium gets low they will just supplement it without stopping the lasix. She definitely needs it and already she was much better tonight. They still haven't taken her off the BiPap and put her back on the regular CPAP yet but made some good progress today in decreasing her BiPap settings. She tolerated it well so I'm hoping really soon we'll get her back on the CPAP. It feels like it's going to take forever but I just can't wait until she doesn't have to be on either one and she doesn't have to wear her little mask anymore. For now her lungs just need time.

As I expected she did lose a little bit of weight last night after starting back on the diuretic. She was 2 lb 6.5 oz. Nothing drastic, and they didn't weigh her yet tonight and won't do so until 4 A.M. so I won't find out about it until tomorrow. Also, they measured her last night and she has grown about 3 cm (just over an inch) in length since birth! She is really getting bigger and it's starting to get easier to tell when I look at her. For a while it was hard for me to say because I see her everyday but now it's undeniable when I think about how tiny she was at birth.

And a picture of Josh kangarooing just because :)