Cordelia has made lots of progress in the past few days! Danny finally tested negative for Covid and was able to come see her again on Monday. When Alyssa and Danny isolated at home, Cordelia also isolated in a room in the NICU separate from the other babies, and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to keep that room to ourselves now that we’re all back together.
Feeding
Cordelia had been struggling to complete phase 2 of the bottle feeding protocol, which requires her to take two of four feeds per shift via bottle (as opposed to via feeding tube) for four shifts (48 hours) in a row. By Thursday the 16th, things weren’t looking good for the second night shift of her streak, as she had been too sleepy to eat at both 8pm and 11pm care times, meaning to pass she’d have to eat enough of the bottle back to back at 2am and 5am. When we called the hospital on the morning of the 17th we were shocked to learn she did not only that, but completed her bottle at 8am as well! She passed phase 2 that day and then it was on two phase 3.
In phase 3 she can eat whenever she wants, as long as she meets a total volume per shift, which in her case is 183ml. Once she does that for four shifts in a row (another 48 hours) she can move on. If she doesn’t though she moves back to phase 2 and starts over from there.
The whole thing feels like a punishing old school video game, where you almost beat the boss only to die and have to rewatch the cutscene and complete the muscle memory early parts over and over again.
It’s very common for babies to move back a phase… but not for Cordie! She sprinted through phase 3, eating enough volume every shift four shifts in a row and nailing it on the first try! That means she’s now a phase 4 baby and that means she had her feeding tube removed!
Such is the roller coaster of the NICU – nearly three weeks stuck on phase 2 of feeding and then suddenly passing phase 2 and phase 3 in a streak all at once.
Phase 4 is the final phase and to “pass” it she just needs to prove she can consistently gain weight now that she’s exclusively bottle feeding. She gets to eat whenever she “asks” for it just like any newborn would.
Breathing
To figure out if Cordelia needs any respiratory support anymore, we do a “room air trial” where her low flow nasal cannula is removed and her blood oxygen levels are monitored to see if she still needs the supplemental oxygen to breathe. Alyssa was around for Cordie’s first room air trial on November 8th (mom’s first day back post-isolation) which showed she still needed the oxygen after a few hours. Then after her bath on Monday the 13th (dad’s first day back post-isolation) we did a second trial but again after a couple hours, she started to dip, so it would seem the little whiff she is still getting is indeed making a difference. We will likely attempt another room air trial next week. But it’s also possible for her to go home on oxygen.
Weight
Her latest weight is 3074g (we’ve got a 3 kilo baby!) which is 6lbs 12.4oz (fun fact: that means she’s now past Alyssa’s birth weight of 6lbs 10oz).
All these things combined (her weight, phase 4 feeding, low flow oxygen) means we’ve started talking with the doctors and nurses about when she might come home! It could be as soon as next week.
We celebrated Cordie with a kind of baby shower today for our Seattle community of friends. It was really wonderful to have everyone in our house and to see so many friends at once, especially the babies and toddlers (Cordie’s future friends). Our primary nurse Courtney even FaceTimed us from the hospital for a live checkin on a sleepy, milk-drunk Cordelia. Thank you so much to everyone who came and special thanks (as always) to Courtney for going along with our last minute plan.
Phew! Now, at last, some pictures and video.
Testing out my wireless baby during a room air trial.