Moving

Judith has become mobile, but from in the crib.  Since last Tuesday, we've gone from the feeder/grower side of the NICU, to the intensive care side, to the quiet room Judith was originally in, back out to the intensive care side but right outside of the quiet room, across the intensive care side to a bed outside of the opposite quiet room, and back to the feeder/grower side.  She's also gone from an open crib to a bed with an overhead warmer to a giraffe with the top closed to a giraffe with the top up to an open crib.  That's a lot of moving!

Judith is on the mend, though.  Since Thursday, she's been in an open crib of some sort (giraffe or regular newborn bassinet) and has maintained her body temperature well, even after a bath.  She has taken all feeds from her bottle since she was allowed to start eating on Thursday - they were giving her plain breast milk up until 3:00 this afternoon when they began to fortify it again.  She is responding to the antibiotics, and gets her penicillin every 8 hours.  She was having a hard time pooping - she definitely had to go, would push and strain and have lots of gas, but needed a suppository to help move things along.  She gave John a nice, full diaper within 45 minutes of having the suppository in place.  Judith is such a good girl - she remembered our arrangement!  :-)

The best news of the weekend: her cultures all remain negative for bacterial growth!  They definitely caught it early, and thank God she was still in the NICU when this happened!  The early administration of antibiotics is, I believe, a major player in all of this, preventing further growth of the bacteria.  And the penicillin will help to completely wipe the stuff out.

She's been doing everything she would normally need to do for discharge, and if it weren't for the antibiotics, we would have been bringing her home this weekend.  But the good news is as long as she keeps it up we can have her home after her antibiotic treatment is complete!