Happy 2 Month Birthday Cricket!

Our little Cricket is 2 months old today!

Ava has been doing well. The vaccinations were not very fun (5 individual shots - luckily the nurses tag teamed them to make them fast). Ava had a lot of "Bradys" that day during feeds and even while I was holding her. She was just more fragile than normal and didn't eat the full amount that day. However, she was much better the next day and didn't seem to have any major reactions! She has also been off the feeding tube since Wednesday when she pulled it out on her own! So, now she needs to eat the full amount by the bottle. This has been a bit challenging at times. The biggest concern is her breathing while eating. She sometimes stops breathing while eating and that causes a Bradycardia and desaturation of her oxygen (she turns a bit blue). However the worst ones are when she chokes on her milk, bradys, then has a major desaturation. She turns very blue and about 1-2 times per day hasn't fully recovered on her own without some oxygen "blow-by" and a lot of rubbing. This is just a symptom of her prematurity and should get better soon. But, it is very scary for us when we feed her and she has these choking episodes.

Ava is up to 5 pounds, 2 ounces! She also got her Pulse Oximeter (pulse-ox) off so now they are only monitoring her heart and respiratory rate. It is nice to have one less cord to worry about when holding her but the oxygen saturation was a nice crutch to be able to see how much oxygen was in her blood (the doctors had to wean us off of it more than Ava!).

Linda continues to feel well and is ready for her last chemo on Thursday. She wore her wig into the NICU today and everyone seemed to like how it looks on her. She only wears it occasionally. I'll try to snap a picture sometime!

Here is a picture from today in her purple velour outfit!

Rob.