little bit's place

Alli's been doing well so far. Today her PICC line started leaking so they removed it. Since she only has a course of antibiotics to finish (she's off needing fluids since she's taking milk now) they are just inserting a temporary IV line in her forehead. I know it sounds nasty, but its not an uncommon place to put an IV on a baby.

Her weight is holding steady at 1 pound and 8 ounces, so I'm guessing that they might up the calorie supplement in her milk. They did start her on a multivitamin on Saturday so that should help her pack on the pounds!

Other than that everything seems to be holding out very well.

Well as of last night, Alli is off of IVs! Hopefully nothing will come up where they need to place another! Now we just need her off the vent and the feeding tube and we'll have a wireless baby.

There are a bunch of new pictures in the NICU section and the Calendar has been updated.

She's been changed from feeding 12 mL every 3 hours to a continuous feed that gives on average 4 mL every hour. Feeding like this will allow her to grow, but it won't ever fill her up. She hasn't had any seizures since being off of the phenobarb, which is good.

I just got off the phone with the NICU. 1lb 13 ounces. 3 more ounces to go!! It's been decided that when she gets to 1000 grams, 2.2 pounds, that they will try to extubate her. When the breathing tube is out, we will be able to see how well she can breathe on her own, and possibly hear her first cries. If all goes well, she won't have to go back on. But if she does, she will use a larger tube than her previous one.

Her skin has healed remarkably well. There is just a small patch left on her back, and that is already dried out and waiting to fall off.

She had some trouble throughout the night. They turned down her settings to match normal air a little more, and she didn't like it. They have changed her ventilator tube to the next size up early to try to get her stable again. Her feeding tube has been placed farther into her digestive tract to stop her from spitting up so much. Right now she is recovering, but very tired. She had a few spells of apnea when we were there, which seeing them is very different from hearing about them. Nothing gets you ready for that.

Though little Alli is gone, this site will still be updated with the rest of her pictures and poems and such that were written for her and read during her funeral. Thank you to everyone who loved her and prayed for her.

If you would like to leave comments for us or Lil Bit, there's a Comments link under each post.

I've decided to get re-baptized at our church. I was raised Roman Catholic, and find nothing wrong with the religion itself, but this church seems to fit my personality more. When I made the announcement every was worried since something like this usually turns everyone away from God, but it brought me closer. How many people get the chance to say they are the proud father of an angel?

I added all of the rest of the pictures of Allison off of our camera. There's only some left to scan that were taken on Pat's camera. I also added three movies of Alli that can be found in the Pictures section. I didn't have the mental energy to add a whole new section for the movies so they will just go there and there they will stay.

I still need to add all the rest of her tributes but one thing at a time for me since this is hard to be around her little pictures and things as it is.

I love you Baby Girl. You're still Mama's little light and I hope you're having the best time in Heaven.