Days 40-41 - March 4-5

Today was pretty cool. Paige was extubated! Her breathing tube was taken out at 11 AM.  Here she is kind of in shock and not too sure what to with herself now that she has to breathe (mostly) on her own.

She's been doing well the past 4 hours since extubation.  She is now on high flow nasal cannula (like Aubrey) at 6 liters/minute on about 42% oxygen, and her blood gases looked good.  Hopefully she doesn't tucker out from having to breathe on her own, but so far so good.  Here's mommy trying to calm her down just after she was extubated.

Here's mommy next to her newly-extubated baby girl.

This past week has certainly been eventful for Paige.  She was held for the first time by mommy, then she was extubated.

As I write this post, Paige is being held by mommy again.  Let me go get some pictures.......OK, here's a few.

Her hair is pretty dirty from the tape.

Paige's feedings are still at 11 mL every 3 hours, which is about halfway to full feedings.  I sense we are getting very close to the sister-sister photo now....

Aubrey's turn.

She's been doing well the past few days.  She's sleeping a lot, and is pretty active when she isn't asleep. Here are a few pictures of her wrapped up burrito-style.

Aubrey's high flow has been decreased to 4 liters/minute and she is on 25% oxygen.  She really dislikes her OG tube, which is the stomach vent that enters her mouth and goes down to her stomach.  She constantly tries to gag it out, and yesterday she managed to pull it out with her hands.  Unfortunately for her it was put back in about an hour later.

Her feedings have been increased to 24 mL every 3 hours, which are fortified (meaning she gets an extra 20% calories), and she is getting a little extra fat with each feeding as well.

Both girls had head ultrasounds yesterday.  Paige still has no problems, and Aubrey's bleed and subdural fluid have gotten no worse, which is good.  I spoke to the neurologist a couple days ago, and he said that everything seemed fine with Aubrey.  He said that due to the fact that she is doing well and nothing seems to be wrong with her, he can't justify doing a CT scan and exposing her to all that radiation.

Well, that's about it. Hope you all enjoyed the pictures.