One Month Old

One month old - wide eyed and alert!

At times it feels like it's been a year, and at other times it's hard to believe a month has already gone by. Today Sloan turned one month old.  I think about when she gets older how we'll tell her that she spent her entire first month in the hospital and wonder what she will think about it.  Of course she won't remember any of it, which is good, but when I sit here and think about it all I wonder if she'll think it's as big of a deal as we do.  I guess we'll see when she gets older!

They have started back up on Sloan's feeds as of yesterday.  They are taking it VERY slow which is a bit frustrating for Sloan.  She's pretty cranky at times as I can tell she is having hunger pains.  She'll root around for food and when we stick the pacifier in her mouth she will suck on it so hard that it makes a smacking noise.  Hopefully this means that when we try to bottle feed again she'll be so hungry that she'll pick up on it quicker!

They started her feeds at 5ml/hour and have slowly been moving up.  As of right now, she is at 20ml/hour.  They plan to stay here for about 8 hours and then move up again.  I'm sure Sloan is severely confused since we were giving her 65ml every 3 hours just 5 days ago and then cut everything off cold turkey for 3 days and now are only giving her a small portion of that over a longer stretch of time.  She seems to be tolerating the feeding, which is just breast milk, as of now.  Soon they will begin to mix the breast milk with formula again to ensure she is getting the calories she needs to grow.  This is important as the next stage surgery is dependent on her growing & getting stronger.  So we need to make sure she can take in so much.

They have decided to change the formula to a more easily digested kind - the same we had Drake on when he was young.  Now we just need to make sure she doesn't have anymore blood in her stool or else we'll start this whole process over again.  I've had a few talks with Sloan about this so she knows we want to get out of here...not stay here longer...so no more bloody stools!

I know I've said this before, but Kyle and I would again like to thank all of you for your thoughts & prayers.  We feel very blessed to have so many people behind Sloan helping to push her along!