Admiring from afar

I feel a bit better today, but am still sniffly and coughy, so no Natasha holding for me.

Natasha, on the other hand, is doing great. She put back on some weight and is up to 4lb 10.6 oz, and her waistline is 27".
She had a couple bradys last night.. one where her heart rate dropped to 97 and one to 86, but she started back up on her own so it's not terrible.
For some reason, there was no order to check her bilirubin this morning, which seems odd to me (and to the nurse I discussed it with), so we left a note for the doctor to be sure to run that tomorrow morning. They only do it in the mornings.. The nurse thought she seemed a little jaundiced, but not too bad.

Since I couldn't hold her or breathe on her, I just watched her from afar. And I realized that most of you would not really have an idea of what the NICU looks like.

<-- This is Natasha's little area.
The isolette has been replaced by a produce bin-looking portable crib, and the rest of the equipment is exactly the same in each area.

There are between 1 and 3 babies in each room, depending on how many nurses are on shift, how many babies there are, and what level of care each of them needs. When she first got here, Natasha was in a room by herself. She's in her 4th room now, which she shares with one other baby. (There's a little board at the entrance that shows which room everyone is in, and after the first time we walked straight to her room to find her not there, now we remember to check each time!)

The monitor at the top shows all the key readings: heart rate at the top, breathing rate in the middle, and oxygen saturation at the bottom (look at her with 100% oxygenation, she gets an A+!!). The heart and breath rate is monitored from a sensor taped to her chest, and the oxygen saturation is measured from a pulse oximeter held on her foot with a velcro strap. These are all non-invasive sensors, but they're why there are still a slew of wires tethering her to her monitor.

The glowing blue light is coming from the machine that controls the flow of liquids.. it's the same machine that controlled the IV flow, but now it's managing the flow of milk into Natasha's feeding tube. You can see the big syringe full of milk mounted to it because it's dinner time for Natasha.

That's all the exciting stuff.. there's also a little sign with her name and footprints that we need to decorate to make a little less flowery and a little more Neumansky ;) And the cart on the left travels with her too. It's got her chart, some sanitizer, a little bin for paperwork for us and odds and ends that stay with Natasha.

So that's the exiting NICU.. hopefully tomorrow's update will include lots of holding and feeding.