Wednesday, January 31st - Kaia's comments

Break out the champagne and celebrate a few mini-milestones! Today Lauren is 31 weeks (adjusted gestational age) and she is over 3lbs!!! In her short life she has already increased her weight by 150%!

This week we are beginning to see Lauren learn some new tricks. First of all, she can suck on a pacifier (yes, very impressive.) In the next week or two, she will begin mastering the art of nursing. For Connor, this was a challenging skill to learn, and since Lauren is so small, it will probably be challenging for her as well. Over the next few weeks, Lauren will also begin weaning off of her Bubble CPap and just using oxygen from a nasal canula. It will be great to get all of the head gear off of her and enjoy just gazing at her darling face. (Sorry for the fuzzy photo, but we try to shield her eyes and limit any flashes because they startle her. As you can see, the bubble CPAP really obscures her face.)

Another skill that we both began learning today was baby massage. Lauren's nervous system is developing well, and the occupational therapists now encourage parental touch as a positive counter to the 'negative' touch she's used to receiving (heel sticks, blood draws, diaper changes, ventilator changes, xrays.....few of which are welcome or enjoyable.) During our Kangaroo session today, an OT helped teach me how to gently touch her back, arms and legs. Although eventually this may be a very soothing experience, it was quite stimulating to her today. But she tolerated the massage quite well and we'll continue this pattern as a part of our daily Kangaroo'ing.

Lauren continues to be quite the enthusiastic eater. She's up to 24 cc's of breastmilk every 3 hours, which is considered a 'full feed' for her weight. This is almost double the amount of breastmilk she was getting just a week ago! She no longer has any IV's, and the only additional nutrition she's receiving is an iron supplement and a little caffeine (her morning Starbuck's.)