Wednesday March 30, 2016

Since the last blog post there have been some great improvements with Seraya!

The first thing is that she graduated to a different pod which is for babies who only need to receive intermediate care. She is no longer in need of intensive care which is great! We have a window seat which is really nice. We like this a lot better than her old spot:) Praise be to God for this incredible blessing that she can be one step closer to eventually coming home!!

Seraya is still being fed every 3 hours from a ng-tube. She is now up to receiving 60 mls per feed. It is still pumped into her over a 2 hour period and so she only gets an hour break between her feeds. She has been steadily gaining weight and so last week they discontinued most of the extra fortifiers they were adding to my milk. Currently they are only adding a human milk fortifier. We are grateful that she continues to gain so well, as she has still has to work hard to breathe and so her body uses a lot of her energy on this. Currently she is weighing in at around 6 pounds 8 ounces:)

Another big change for Seraya is that they switched her to an opti (high)-flow breathing machine instead of cpap. This machine still provides some pressure to help keep her lungs open. She is also still requiring around 30-35% oxygen. Brian and I are enjoying this alot more than cpap, as there are less tubes. It is easier to take her in and out of bed which is great. We find that she seems to be a lot more comfortable on this type of machine as well.

So far they have not had to tap her resoivoir at all, as it has been helping to drain the fluid properly from her head down her spine. Each day the neurosurgeon comes up and takes a look and feel of her head, but so far he has felt no pressure. We are very thankful for this good news. Eventually she will need this resoivoir taken out and they will put in a shunt which will be permanent. But we are not there quite yet:)

She had an ultra sound done of her kidneys. When a baby is born as premature as Seraya was, they want to do routine checkups of their organs just to make sure they are functioning properly and are not damaged due to the effects of being born so early. The results showed that her kidneys seemed to be functioning properly! We were very happy to hear this news.

Last week we were able to give Seraya her first “real” bath in a little white tub. This was very exciting for us, as it shows she is getting stronger and is able to tolerate more. She seemed to enjoy it very much and hardly cried at all. We bathe her every other night.

We continue to be thankful for the progress Seraya continues to make, as each week goes by. She is slowly becoming stronger and continues to grow. In the coming weeks we hope that her lungs will continue to grow and develop, so she will be able to go onto a low-flow breathing machine. Once she is on this, she will be allowed to start oral feeds. We are starting to very much look forward to being able to take our daughter home. We would like to thank everyone once again for their prayers, gifts, cards and words of encouragement. They are always very appreciated and are a great comfort to us. 

Psalm 57: 9-11
"I will praise you O Lord among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth."