10 WEEKS OLD

Not much new information to report. Gracie has been doing great off of the ventilator. The doctors seem confidant that she won't go back on. The only thing keeping her in the hospital now are feeding issues and antibiotics which she receives through a IV (she needs to be on the antibiotics for a month to treat the staff infection, which she started on March 9). There has been some talk about transferring her to Kaiser but I was told this morning that the transfer definitely will not happen this week. This is fine with me, I would rather just keep her here until she can come home.

Her feeds are going really good. She was back up to her full feeds (19cc's per hour continuous) by Friday. Today they moved on to the next step in her feeding. They stopped the continuous feeds and went to boluses feeds which is to give her one ounce every 3 hours. I believe that her goal is to get 3 ounces every three hours.

The occupational therapist came around this morning to assess Gracie to see if she will be able to tolerate feeding from the bottle or breast. She thinks it looks good; so Gracie will be giving the bottle a try on Wednesday. She also taught me some exercises for Gracie to do in order to help stretch out her legs and one for her hands to help her thumbs loosen up. Her right hand looks good but the left one is a little tight. When she makes a fist her thumb wants to go inside and they want it to go outside. I'm told that it is common condition for preemies.

Dave and I are doing good. The kids are on Spring break. They will be spending part of the time at my mom's house, part of the time at Dave's sisters house and part of the time with us. They are really handling this situation very well, we are so proud of them. However, they are getting very anxious to have all of us home. We have weekly meetings with Gracie's "team" and last week the kids were with us. The doctor asked them if they had any questions and they replied "when can we take her home?" Of course the doctors couldn't give them an answer. (I feel it is a few weeks away which is better then months like we originally thought)

As always thank you for all of your prayers and keep them coming.
Much Love,
Jackie