the 3 milestones

I finally had the courage to ask the nurse yesterday when Claire could come home.

The first thing that needs to happen is Claire putting on enough weight to be able to regulate her body temperature. Currently, she is so thin that little breezes send her into a chill. This is the reason she is still in the incubator.

Next, she needs to be able to breath and maintain heartbeat for 7 days in a row without medication. She is currently on daily caffeine doses to stimulate heart and lung activity. They tried taking her off it last week, and she had several bouts of apnea (no breathing) and bradycardia (no heartbeat).

Finally, she needs to get all her nutrition from bottle feeding. She has been drinking a little bit of milk every 3 hours, but sometimes when they check her stomach, she has not digested all of it. This is somewhat related to the slow-moving-bowel issue mentioned previously, and in general shows lack of maturity in the digestive tract.

These three things will probably take several weeks. Here's hoping she can come home on her original due date: July 30.