Daily Dose: Wednesday, June 24

Hope dancing in her bouncy seat

Hope had a busy day today. She had three BIG tests done. An Upper GI, a small bowel followthrough, and a video swallow study. Hope tolerated all of the tests well. The initial results look good but the doctors will tell us more tomorrow.

Hope is quite the dancing machine in her little bouncy chair, she's not going to let much hold her back.

Daily Dose: Sunday, May 17

Hope had her ups and downs today. She had a great morning, was awake, alert and social with everyone. The video is from this morning when she was doing her developmental exercises.

In the afternoon she had more dramatic events and was a bit agitated. They tested Hope for RSV- a respiratory something that babies can get. To do that, she had to be put in isolation. Now, everyone that touches her has to wear gloves and a gown until the test results come back.

Hope is working hard to feel better tomorrow, and the news that Aunt Em is coming for a visit will definitely help her perk up!!!

Daily Dose: Wednesday, May 6

Hope was feeling pretty good for most of the day and remained awake and alert for the entire day! Mommy, Daddy & Grandpa & Grandma R took an infant CPR class. The good news is they all passed with flying colors!!!!

Mommy & Daddy met with Hope's developmental pediatrician this afternoon. She was very pleased with the progress Hope has been making. Hope was able to focus on objects and track them with her eyes. Hope also sat up and did very well with her head control. Hope was showing off and even turned to look at the doctor when she spoke to her, which made the doctor pretty confident that Hope could hear her. Mommy & Daddy discussed that Hope had been referred for further hearing testing so the doctor dug a little deeper to find out details. Turns out the hearing test that Hope "failed" was just that she didn't respond to sounds at 35 decibels. The doctor was pretty sure that given all the ambient noise in the room, 35 decibels is very quiet and not surprising that Hope had trouble. Hopefully Hope will do well with her follow up test with the audiologist after she is released.

One thing that Hope needs to work on is getting the social smiling down. Hope was also showing a little tightness in some of her muscles but the doctor showed Mommy & Daddy some things to do to help Hope relax. After 5 minutes of doing those things, Hope was completely relaxed and content so Mommy & Daddy have to make sure they do those things every day to Hope help stay relaxed and loose.

The BIG news for today is that Hope weighed in at 7 pounds 1 ounce today!!! Yes, SEVEN pounds. That is HUMONGOUS compared to when she was born. Way to go Hope!!

Here is a little video of Hope looking around

Daily Hope: Wednesday, February 12

This video was from Hope's respiratory treatment on Tuesday. It looks a little alarming at first, but it definitely helps her breathing!!!

Hope had a different day today. She had some other episodes of uncooperativeness, aka forgetting to breathe. She's still working on that.

The highlights, and/or the only events of today include:
- Becoming overly joyous at the sight of Aunt Em
- Having another case of the hiccups
- Flailing her arms and legs
- Being cute
- Being cute again
- Eating
- More cute
- Still cute.

Hope & the Hiccups

While snuggling with Daddy yesterday, Hope got the hiccups. Whoever thought a case of the hiccups could be so incredibly cute?!?!

Hope SUCKS

Do not be appalled by the title of this entry and this video. This is a great thing!!!!!

This afternoon, right before Hope's 5pm feeding, her nurse, Dawn, was doing some things with Hope and taking care of business, etc, when she proclaimed: "SHE SUCKS!!"

Of course we were taken aback by this, but Hope does suck, as in sucking on a pacifier!! This is fantastic progress!! Yes, Hope still has all the tubes going down through her mouth, but she is still able to get a little suction and suck on a make-shift pacifier. It was pretty exciting stuff in the NICU today.

The video, towards the end, really shows her neck moving and her mouth moving, or at least that's what we saw in person. Extra props to Aunt Em (me) today for busting out the video mode on the digital camera. I believe this would be Hope's first video!!!!

And for those of you who have grown to be dependent upon your daily dose of Hope, no fears, there is plenty more where that comes from and should be posted later this evening with PLENTY of pictures.