2nd Visit with Dr. S

Today Kinley had her second pediatricians visit since being discharged from Children's Mercy. It went really well. Kevin and I brought our computer to show Dr. S the log on how Kinley is doing with her bottles and NG feeds at night. We made this big spreadsheet that shows what time the feeding was supposed to begin, what the actual time was, how much she took initially before stopping for a burp, what the whole intake was for the feed, if-when-how much vomit there was, did we give any meds and if so when, if there were any wet or dirty diapers and any comments that we wanted to add. Dr. S said that he could tell we were "raised" in the NICU with Kinley. He sure was right. It has been kind of hard for us to adjust to "life on the outside" with Kinley. We were used to monitors telling us how Kinley is breathing, what her blood pressure is, what her heart rate is, etc. We also were used to the nurses measuring the contents in Kinley's stomach prior to feeding (her residuals), taking her temp every 4 hours and knowing exactly how much she was eating down to the ml...heck, they even weighed her diapers to know how much she was peeing! While it is nice not to have to worry about all that now, it is still difficult for us to adjust completely. Dr. S just glanced at our spreadsheet, but wasn't really too interested in the details. He was just concerned that Kinley is gaining weight appropriately, and she is, so he was happy. He said that we could continue the spreadsheet, but not to get too wrapped up in the numbers. He said some days will be better than others, but the main goal is steady weight gain. According to his scale today Kinley was 11 lbs and 9 oz, so it looks like she is continuing to gain weight. YEA!!! So, for now we will continue the bottles during the day without the NG tube in, and then do tube feeds at night replacing what Kinley was not able to eat during the day.