7 months!

I realized that I never put up her 6 months picture!

I was helping Tom stain the deck and Zues was babysitting Fiona! haha

She fell asleep after 2 minutes in the stroller!

Last Sunday (the 20th) Fiona turned 7 months! I can't believe it! Technically today she should only be 5 months (which is her "adjusted" age). Her PT says that she is on target for all 3 and 4 month skills except for putting weight on her legs. She really does not like to do that. She pretty much hates that and tummy time. We can only get her on her tummy for about 3 or 4 minutes at a time before she really starts crying. That is usually the only time I see real tears from her and it is so sad! But before she gets mad she does really good at holding her head up.

She has been sucking on her fingers like crazy lately. And the other night she was sucking her thumb! She started putting anything she gets ahold of into her mouth, including her bib! I have no idea why because it can't taste that good! We have started to have to keep her bib on her for most of the day to keep her from pulling at her trach. She is such a stinker and loves to pull at it for some reason. The other day she had it half way out. I have no idea what we are going to do in another few months!

She is getting really good at her hand-eye coordination. She loves to grab those link rings. And she has even started to hold onto her bottle. Next step is getting her to hold it by herself. Although when she holds onto it herself she just likes to play with it and pull it out of her mouth.

We took her for her second walk the other day. We used the regular stroller this time. I can't remember if I mentioned this before but we have this "stroller" called a Kid Cart that is specifically made for babies like her. It has spots for the ventilator, battery, oxygen tank, meds/feeding pump. But she doesn't fit in it very well. She is too small and gets herself in really awkward positions and she just doesn't look comfortable. It also makes her look 10 times sicker than she is. So we just found a way to fit everything into the regular stroller and it worked well!

YAY for gaining weight!

Well Fiona has had her NG tube out for 2 1/2 weeks now and is doing awesome! She got a weight check yesterday (because her nutritionist wanted to make sure she was gaining weight) and is now 12 lbs 3 oz! She is gaining really well! And *knock on wood* I think we are past the point of even thinking about putting the NG tube back it! YAY! One less thing we have to worry about now!

I finally got ahold of her Pulmonologist the other day (after trying 5 times) and she has us turn down 2 of the settings on her ventilator! We went from 26 to 22 breaths per minute and from 22 to 20 on the pressure control. Everyone keeps asking me how long she is going to be on the vent. And honestly the answer is NO ONE KNOWS! I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I get kind of tired having to tell people that over and over haha! Here are her setting right now: Breaths per Minute- 22, Pressure Control- 20, Pressure Support- 12, PEEP- 5, and Insp. Time- .08. I really don't know what the settings have to be at for her to get off of it. I know that in the NICU the BPM had to be 20 or less for them to take her off. But everything else has to go down too. I THINK that the Pressure Support and PEEP should both be at 0. So she still has a ways to go. We have to get a blood gas (which she hasn't gotten in a long time!) on Monday to see how her CO2 is from these changes we made. We see Pulomonology again on the 29th and if everything is good they will make some more changes. She also wants to take her off the vent for 5 minutes and see what happens. I don't think she is going to last the whole 5 minutes though.

In other news we are going to start having a Speech Therapist come in once a week to work with her. Like we don't have enough people here already! I'm not sure what they are going to start out doing, but eventually we will be teaching her Baby Signs! I am really excited about this!

Getting Big!!

First time in the grass!

Splashing around in the pool!

Taking a nap with daddy!

First time sitting up like a big girl in the bumbo!

"HUH? Are you talking to me?!"

Miss Fiona weighs in at 11 lbs. 7 oz. now!

So here are updates on things since the last post: We tried 2 weeks ago to take Fiona's NG tube out because she was doing so well eating from the bottle! She actually did really well eating but then starting throwing everything back up. She couldn't even keep down Pedialyte, so we had to put it back in. We left it in for the 5 days until it was time to change it again and she has had it out since last Tuesday! She is doing awesome eating! Before she was getting fed 65 mL every 4 hours. Now we are just kind of feeding her whenever she is hungry and she is sometimes taking 70 or 80 at a time. Last night Tom even got her to take 100 at one feeding and 90 at another! Her nutritionist doesn't know that the tube is out yet. I am kind of nervous to tell her because some days Fiona doesn't get exactly everything she should. But we saw her surgeon last week and he said that as long as she is still gaining weight that we shouldn't worry about it. He told us to start putting cereal in every bottle just to give her some more calories. Keep your fingers crossed that it stays out this time! I am so happy that we have one less thing to worry about right now.

So when we saw the surgeon he was very impressed with the rest of the skin growth on her O. She has one tiny tiny spot left to cover over and then it will FINALLY all be skin! He told us to start putting lotion on the rest of it to make it nice and smooth, haha. He is overall so impressed with Fiona and how she is doing. He told us at least 5 times that she looked great! We're not quite ready to start putting things back in yet though.

We also saw Cardiology that day and that appointment went well too! The doctor said that on Fiona's list of problems that her heart is at the bottom! It doesn't look like there will be any heart surgeries in the future, YAY! They just need to keep an eye on her because sometimes when there are lung problems it can start to affect the heart. But they said there is still a very good chance of both of her holes closing on their own!

She is doing awesome with OT and PT. She is holding her head up pretty good now. Still not quite where she should be, but much much better! She is constantly eating her hands and fingers and started reaching and grabbing for things with both hands. She is always so happy and smiley! She is such a good baby!