Skip to main content

Who Weighs Almost As Much as a Sack of Potatoes? Eleanor! Yay!

Eleanor is two months old now and doing well. 

The doctors plan to gradually wean her vent settings until they can try out some new head gear (get rid of the elephant mask again...the RAM was too much work and she experienced increased heart drops and oxygen). She stays pretty stable now at under 30% oxygen and has had vastly fewer heart drops. She mostly just stops breathing when she is super comfy and super asleep.

She weighs very very very close to FIVE pounds. Kim said, "If you would have told me on January 22nd that roughly two months after birth, she’d be this huge, I would have laughed in your face." She is filling out quite nicely, if I do say so myself :) What a cutie 

Eleanor passed her thyroid test with flying colors. She has her third eye exam tomorrow (hoping for equally good results: no ROP, great growing eyeballs).

Mom went back to work Wednesday. She was supposed to return Tuesday, but she had to call off because she had the flu...uhm, thanks, Nature. Perfect timing. It was ROUGH but, in her words, she has to remind herself that this is only temporary until Eleanor gets to come home. It's easier said than done. (Stay strong, Kimbee!)

Today, I'm told Eleanor pooped through six diapers while Dad was changing her...LOL

Mom and Dad (and Eleanor, I'm sure!) also want to express their continued appreciation for all the love and prayers for the little miss as she continues to grow and strengthen.

Comments

  1. Lovely to hear she is getting bigger and better ❤❤❤stay strong family. Love you always!
    M

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First 48

Hi friends and family of Kim, Alex, and baby Eleanor Sutara, After talking with Kim and Alex, it seemed easiest to send updates to everyone through a blog post. We are grateful and appreciative of everyone's concern, support, and well wishes as Eleanor begins her long journey in Akron Children's. Eleanor is a PPROM baby, meaning that Kim experienced a preterm premature rupture of the membranes (PPROM), showing little to no amniotic fluid in utero, and was subsequently hospitalized long-term for monitoring at 24 weeks following a large bleeding episode, with the hopes that the baby would be able to hang in to 34 weeks. I will let Kim elaborate if she wants on the pre-birth details, but for now I'm just slapping some hard and fast details together from what I can immediately recall. Heart monitoring of the baby beginning on Saturday, 19 January revealed some variability, and Kim was taken to the labor and delivery ward as a precaution. By Tuesday morning, Kim's doct...

The Little Peanut That Could

Eleanor has been growing like a weed! Using little to no energy to eat allows for all those calories to be stored, aside from the hundreds she burns kicking all day long.  Eleanor had a swallow study this week where it was determined she needed thicker milk. There are no thickeners for breast milk that are NICU approved so she, reluctantly, is now trying out formula. She gets to attempt one ounce via a bottle and the remainder through her ng-tube. The remainder is still breast milk, so we’re not completely throwing in the towel.  Thicker food has made a significant difference in the feeding process. What used to be terrifying and stressful, as Eleanor would choke and stop breathing, is now a wonderful experience. The only problem is Eleanor often just gums the bottle and isn’t actually drinking anything. But she’s still happy, so we’re okay with it.  This weekend she is to repeat her stim(ulation) test. Recall from the last post, this is the synthetic injected ...

Aiming for September

Eleanor is thiiiiis close to weighing a whopping EIGHT pounds! She loves her food, even though her protein supplement gives her the most epic gas. And I do mean epic. She farts as loud as a grown adult; nurses down the hall can hear her. The plan for the little miss to get off of respiratory support has FINALLY commenced. Eleanor started an 8-week course of steroids on Tuesday. She will get two full weeks of the big kahuna dose and then taper down until she weans off at the end of the 8 weeks. Should she need more steroids closer to time to get off, they can increase the dose for a few days without causing negative effects. She is on the big kid steroid Orapred (similar to Predinisone, which I am sure many of you have heard of) which is an oral steroid she can take through her NG tube and doesn’t require an IV or any other new accessories. She will be a 'roid raging little pistol butt for the first two weeks and should calm down after her dose begins weaning. The plan is ...