Day 45

I hope that pretty soon I won't have much to write about.

Here's the latest:

Avery has leveled out in her progress.  It's starting to look like she could be on the CPAP for a while longer.  The longer premature babies have to spend time on a ventilator, the slower their respiratory progress afterward.

Wren is still recovering from surgery, but seeming to do fairly well.  She is on a steroid right now, so the question will be whether she can maintain how well she is breathing right now once the steroid goes away.  The neonatologist on today told me that the group's hopeful plan for her is to try and work down her settings a bit, and see if she's in good shape by Monday to try and transition to the CPAP.  Normally they would transition her from a jet ventilator to a conventional one as this is the most logical next step before extubation, but in this case her current breathing tube has a decent amount of air leak and stands in need to be replaced regardless, so they're thinking they will just go straight to CPAP and see how she does when they feel she's ready for it.  In the event that they need to intubate her again, she would be put on a new ventilator with a slightly larger breathing tube.