Day 27

Today Aerin is 30 weeks gestational and she had a good day. She's still in the 30's on the Vapotherm and her feeds are up to 5 cc's. Her stomach x-ray was great. The plan is to bump her up 1 cc every 3 feeds. She's still under the bililight, but she's comfortable enough to sleep all day and night.

I got to hold her for about 2 hours today! It was bliss. She had a brief bradycardia while I was holding her. It was so fast that her alarm didn't even have a chance to ring off and she brought herself right out of it. One of the nurses, Chris, said that she was just so relaxed being kangarooed that she forgot to breathe for a second. Aerin's day nurse, Debbie, showed me a new kangaroo technique. The old method is me sitting in a chair and the nurse taking her out of the isolette and handing her to me. With the new method, I lift her out of the isolette and put her to my chest and sit down with her. It's a new method that the nurses just learned in their latest clinic. The idea is that it takes less time for the babies to settle down and I can tell you that it works. Aerin didn't even open her eyes when I picked her up and put her to my chest. She snuggled right down and her stats stayed exactly the same. I love this method because it gives me the most hands-on time with her and because it's such a normal thing for a mother to do with her baby - pick her up out of her bed and hold her.