February 22, 2011

Jeremy and I sort of had a big day today. Well I guess more than sort of. First, we actually got someone to teach us how to place the feeding tube. Second, we placed the feeding tube! And by we of course I mean Jeremy. He pulled the old tube out which was quick and easy. She hardly even noticed we did anything. I didn't really watch him put the new tube in because I was writing down everything the nurse said as fast as I could. But for having a tube put down her throat by someone that's never done it before, she did a minimal amount of crying. I am really proud that Jeremy was able to do it and really glad I didn't have to. I'll have my turn though...

For those of you who want to know how the inserting the feeding tube works, I'll do my best to explain it. For those of you who don't, skip this paragraph.

You can kind of see in this picture that there are black marks on the tube that goes up above her head.

That is the feeding tube and those are marks that tell us how far to push the tube in. We use a measuring tape and measure from her nose, to her ear, to the midpoint between her sternum and belly button. That measures about 21 cm, so we stop pushing the tube in when the 21 mark on the tube reaches her nose. There are a couple ways to know that we got the tube in her stomach instead of her airways. We can hook a syringe to the end and push a little bit of air into her stomach. If we can hear a swoosh sound in her stomach through a stethoscope it's in the right place. Or, instead of pushing air in, we can pull out with the syringe and if we get fluid it's in the right place. The tube only needs to be replaced every month or if she pulls it out. Hopefully we won't have to put it in too many times.

I had to hurry and take a picture of her with the feeding tube out of her nose. When the nurse wasn't looking I took her oxygen out too :)

We put her in her car seat again today and of course she loved it. And how did she let us know? She pooped :) We got her buckled in this time and she slept in there for about two hours. She only got mad when we took her out to weigh her. The best part is that her oxygen levels stayed up. Her machines only binged because she was getting too much oxygen sometimes.

These are just some more cute pictures of her in her crabby towel after her bath today. She loves to be in the bath too. She doesn't like to get out :)

I think the nurses and doctors are sick of Jeremy and I nagging them about when we can take Jaela home because they're finally making an effort to get the process started. I think the nurse practitioner has started filling out her discharge papers and I know for sure that she is ordering the equipment we'll need to take home with us. We'll have to "room in" which means we stay over night in a designated bedroom and we're completely responsible for her for the night. If we need help a nurse will be there, but other than that we're on our own. They're going to get that scheduled soon hopefully.

My mom spent the day at the hospital with me yesterday. The occupational therapist stopped by and they got talking about what a miracle this baby is. Every baby is a miracle, but this little girl shouldn't have survived her birth. She is proving that she's a fighter and she wants to live. She is such a blessing to us and we are so proud of all the little accomplishments she makes each day.