Settling In

Our baby girl has been settling in to her new room on the general care floor.  We miss the care and attention we received in the ICU, but know being on this floor is a step in the right direction.  Kyle and I have also been much more involved in her care (bathing, feeding, holding, etc).  Sloan is off wall oxygen and off her morphine.  She now is on an oral pain medication every six hours and then receives baby Tylenol as she needs it in between.  She's eating every three hours right now and is given 60 cc's.  Each time she is fed we spend about 20 minutes with her trying to get her to eat from a bottle.  It's been a bit of a struggle thus far.  She seems pretty clueless with what to do with the bottle.  This is completely normal and Kyle and I actually expected it going into this experience.  Most of these babies develop oral aversion from having a breathing tube in and not eating for so long.  They told us that some babies start to pick up eating from a bottle in a few weeks, others take a few months.  We'll keep practicing with Sloan in the hopes she picks things up soon.  Right now she just sits with the nipple in her mouth, sucks periodically but hasn't gotten down the suck & swallow that we need her to.  But she'll get there!  Until she does whatever she doesn't eat from the bottle is given to her through her feeding tube.  So we are learning how to use the feeding tube for when we go home (not only for her feedings but also to give her oral meds).

Aunt Vicki

We've also had more visitors this weekend.  Aunt Vicki & cousin Aiden flew in from Atlanta to spend the weekend here to meet Sloan and visit with the family.  Mimi & Poppy came up and so did Aunt Lori, Uncle Mike & cousin Alex.  Drake is in town so we've been able to spend a lot of family time together.  Sloan also had some of our friends stop in to see her, Agatha & Jack and Jeromi & Ashley.

We've all been able to hold Sloan as well.  Now that she's not hooked up to so many lines we are able, and encouraged to, hold her more.  Not only does it help with bonding, it also helps to break up the  mucus in her throat/lungs when we hold & rock her.  We are trying to make up for all the time we couldn't hold her!

Jack & Agatha

We are unsure how long we'll be on the general care floor before they discharge us.  We have quite a bit to learn before we go home on how to care for her and she has some milestones to hit with her feedings and such before they will allow us to go home.  We look forward to being at home together as a family but also fear being home without the monitors that assure us her stats look good.  We'll just continue to take things a day at a time and figure it out as we go!

Stroller ride back from x-ray