Sunday, July 31, 2011

Week Four

This Friday Lillian turned four weeks old.[1] She's made more progress:
  • She's up to 5 pounds, 12 ounces [2]
  • She's moved up to nursing three times a day instead of two
Unfortunately this has tired her out and so at this point she doesn't wake up for two of her three feedings each day. But we're hopeful that she'll get back up to speed quickly.

WARNING: If you are bothered by pictures of infants in intensive care, you probably shouldn't read on.




However, it's partly her fault that she's too tired to wake up for the 1 o'clock feeding. Several times this week after we put her back to bed in the morning she just sat there looking around. The nurses informed us that she didn't fall asleep for several hours. No wonder she was dead tired when we came back! These are videos of her doing just that. In the first she fakes us out by yawning a few times.[3] You can also hear her growling at the end because she's refluxing a little.


Earlier this week we had some sudden rain. It was enough to flood the sidewalk in front of our apartment complex. Our manager was out of town, so I had put out the trash and the recycling to be picked up. They were originally all in a line. You can see what the flood water did to them. I had to wade through water to get to my car so we could go see Lillian.[4]


Lilli got to wear some more of her clothes this week, including some that had a 'ruffle-bum', as Leann calls them (the flanking pictures). You can't really see the 'ruffle bum', though, since she's lying on it. Even though she's really cute in the sleep sacs (middle picture), when we pull them up to change her diaper, they constrict on her belly. Leann doesn't like that, so there probably won't be any more pictures of the preemie sleep sacs.


Here's a video of Lillian with the hiccups. Sometimes she deals with them pretty well, but this time she was a little mad about it.

Quite often while we're on our way into our out of the hospital we see ambulances parked outside. Utah Valley Regional Medical Center receives NICU babies from all of Utah south of Point of the Mountain. We've seen ambulances from Provo city (of course), Orem city, Spanish Fork city, Payson city, Carbon county, Millard county, Sanpete county, North San Juan county, Juab county, Sevier county, Beaver county, Iron county, and Wayne county.


This could be the last of Lilli's lilies. There was only this one to take a picture of, this time around. However, I could be wrong. There are a few unopened buds in this picture.


Are you still in the mood to wave goodbye? Don't be shy. Here, Daddy will help you. What? You don't need help? Okay.[5]


Notes:

[1] For more about her unexpected arrival, see here. For week one milestones, etc., see here. For week two milestones, etc., see here. For week three milestones, etc., see here.

[2] I forgot to mention that along with the blow-by air while she nurses, they've also started adding iron and protein to her feedings. The protein, in particular, helps her to gain weight.

[3] Sometimes when she yawns I think she looks like Yoda or like the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (see here, for example—it's even flailing its arm, like she sometimes does).

[4] I don't usually park on the street, but someone was parked in the entrance to our parking garage, so that time I couldn't get in.

[5] I actually said, "Wingapo" on her next wave, but by that time Leann had stopped recording. ("Wingapo" is the Powhatan word for "welcome" or "hello", according to the Disney movie Pocahontas.)

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