SO MANY THINGS HAPPENED SO FAST!

All good things, but it’s literally hard to keep up! Norah is doing awesome and her shiny new liver is working beautifully! We are so so so so so so so thankful and happy that this transplant happened and is giving her a new chance at life!

Anyway, so last Wednesday, Oct 14, they started Norah on breastmilk through an NG (nasal) tube on a continuous drip. It was started very, very slowly at 5mL per hour just to make sure she tolerated food in her stomach vs. IV only nutrition. Then the next day increased to 10 mL per hour continuously, then on Thursday, Oct 16, they “clumped” her feeds so that she got 30 mL every 3 hours and let me breastfeed up to 3 times a day for only 5 minutes each, but I was SOOOOO happy to do even that! It had been 19 days since she had nursed and I was getting sick of pumping and longed to hold Norah against me to feed her, even if only 5 minutes twice that day! Friday they started to increase her feeds to 40 mL every 3 hours. Saturday the doctors decided to take a big leap and gradually increase her feeds to meet her goal of 75 mL, or 2.5 oz every 3 hours. Unfortunately they did this simultaneously while increasing my breastfeeding time to 10 minutes 3 times a day. It was a little too much of a good thing, because after nursing and getting a NG feed of 45 mL, she threw up pretty much everything she had just taken in. Then, her doctors decided to stretch out each of the NG feeds so that the pump provided her 55 mL over an hour and then I was allowed to feed her no more than 10 minutes 3 times a day. Saturday was also the day that we got moved, somewhat suddenly, to the regular pediatric floor. The charge nurse for the floor came over around noon and by 4pm we were unpacking all of our belongings to settle into our new room (with a bathroom and a couch that pulls out – HALLELUJAH!) on the floor.

Both Jason and I were a little shocked at the move, but also thankful, because that means we were no longer considered as “critical” now. It’s crazy how far we came in a week… from getting extubated one Saturday to being transferred to the regular peds floor the next Saturday!