Over the course of the afternoon Lauren's oxygen saturation improved, so they dropped the oxygen and CPAP settings some and she tolerated the lower settings well. The baggie over her ileostomy stoma is working well and although there is a bit of stool already in it, there has been no leakage either into her IV site or onto her skin. When we got to the unit tonight they were giving her a sponge bath and were getting ready to weigh her. They took off the nasal CPAP prongs while they weighed her and for a few precious moments we were finally able to see our daughter's features without any tubes or hoses to impede our view. It took my breath away. I think she is just the most beautiful baby in the world, but it could be that I am just a little bit biased in my opinion. Luckily I had enough presence of mind to snap a couple of pictures, so those of you following her progress can see her at the pic pages. Her official weigh-in tonight was at 1 lb, 4.5 oz (578 grams), still very little but a small gain in weight. According to her nurse, she had a couple of bradycardic episodes during the day but so far tonight she had been "behaving herself". PS - My internet connection is extremely slow tonight for some reason, so here is a snapshot of Lauren's face...
Lauren slept all night last night and did not have any more bradycardic episodes. The nurse last night suctioned out a sizeable plug of mucous from the back of her throat and it seems that fixed the problem. They decided to begin giving her small amounts of Mommy's milk down the tube into her stomach to "prime" her gut and see how well it processes the feeds. Mommy got to "feed" Lauren a full 1 cc (1/5th of a teaspoon). She is going to get it four times per day and it she tolerates it she will be able to go on full "p.o." feeds for her nourishment. They stopped her antibiotics today and her oxygen is back down to 21%.