38 Weeks

Veronica is slowly but steadily making progress.  She continues to trial off of CPAP everyday but the time she is off varies significantly.  Today she was off for about 4 1/2 hours but several days ago she was off for 11 hours.  One would think the time off would increase each day but that is not necessarily the case with preemies.  We are reminded to be patient - she will come off of CPAP when she is ready to come off of CPAP.  Her feedings are going well and the amount she is taking per feeding has increased to 48 ml which is just over an ounce and a half.  Half of the feedings are through her tube (gavage feeding) and the other half are by mouth, either breast of bottle.  The bottle feeding is going well for the most part but the breastfeeding is something we are still working on. 

It has become clear to us that Veronica will not be home by her due date of August 4.  While I knew all along it was impossible to predict when she would be home,  I couldn't help but hope she would be discharged by her due date.  So we will keep up our daily visits and continue to pray that she can come home to us soon.

Liesl and Andrew visited Veronica this morning and Liesl was thrilled to get to hold her baby sister.

Meanwhile, I took her other baby sister, Josephine, to the emergency room at Montgomery General.  (Don't ask why!)  Andrew and Liesl left George Washington immediately after that and met me, Josephine, Theodore, Linus and Sebastian in the ER.  Andrew stayed with Josephine for four hours while I left with the others.  Our fabulous friend Maria took the oldest four for several hours (thank you!) while I went to the NICU to be with Veronica and then later to work.  When I woke up this morning I had no idea our lives could get any busier then they already were......



Josephine in her hospital gown.  She is home now and doing fine.