The Sweetest Sound

*Not the greatest videos, but, "you get what you get, and you don't throw a fit", right?

We've been waiting almost 6 weeks to hear this!

You parents know the feeling at delivery time, waiting for this sweet sound---music to our ears and heart! With being on the ventilator comes having tubes down the windpipe and no usage of the vocal cords, hence no sounds 'til now---She is OFF the ventilator!!

The past week has had it's ups and downs. Last Saturday, Brinnlie decided to extubate herself and instead of re-intubate her, they let her try the CPAP in which oxygen and breaths (if she needs it) is delivered through the nose. She only lasted about 8 hours and had to be re-intubated then. She also "stooled out" which means that she had too much 'poop' and wasn't absorbing what she should, so they stopped feeds for a day, then started at point zero. Gradually through the week they increased volume and calories, so she is at 3.5 mL a hour, continuously, at 24 calories. As long as she shows signs of tolerance they will keep increasing both until she's up to her limit. They gave her some steroids to help her lungs on Wednesday (this is why she has that huge white gauze taped to her arm, it's the IV) to give her lungs a boost in hopes to extubate sometime this weekend. This happened Thursday morning! And she's been doing well since.

Today they took her off the CPAP and gave her the high-flow oxygen cannula in the nose. This gives her oxygen at a higher flow (pressure) to help her keep pressure in the lungs so as to not completely collapse them. So she is completely breathing on her own and is loving it! Her weight has fluctuated up and down over the week and she's sitting at 650 grams, 1 gram shy of 1 lb. 7 oz.---she's growing, just up and down, not out. I didn't get her current length, but you can definitely tell she's bigger than that 14.8 ouncer 6 weeks ago! Hopefully she will noticeably start to pack on some meat as the calories and volume increase in the next few days.

It was so exciting to see her tonight and feel more optimistic than ever---she's reached, and so far has overcome the next obstacle of getting off the ventilator---we are so proud of her, she's such a fighter and such a girl, giving the nurses and doctors attitude! Hooray for stubbornness and strong-will!

And... she LOVES her binky!