Egleston Day 15/16

Me with my new favorite stuffed animal from Aunt Meredith and Uncle Rich

Here is my new oxygen tube.

In the swing for the first time, I love it!

Me during the sleep study, it looks scary, but I handled it like a champ!


We've had a good couple of days! Avery now weighs 6lbs 11oz, almost a pound more from when she was born. We had to go through some rough testing to figure out what was causing her oxygen levels to go down, the worst was a sleep study. They collected about 7 hours of data on her while she was sleeping, she did really good until about the last hour when she was just tired of having all of the leads and tape on her head and face. They determined that she has a form of reflux apnea.. because her intestines aren't working yet, it causes some pressure in her belly that causes her to take shallow breaths when she is sleeping deeply. They think that it will resolve on its own once she starts moving things along and her belly isn't as full. Worst case scenario, she will go home on oxygen for a little while, but we will see how she progresses over the next few weeks. Her output from her oral tube has gotten much clearer and less, which is a great sign. The plan is for her to go back to gravity suction today, so hopefully she can stay on that for a few days and if that decreases and looks better they can take the tube out and start getting some food!

We had the Physical Therapist come and visit the other day and she showed me some exercises to work on with Avery. She actually likes all the new positions and the Therapist said that she is right on track developmentally, even doing some motor control movements ahead of time! Her head preference is better and she is able to pick her head up and move directions when she is on her belly, which is a good thing for strengthening her belly muscles. Babies with gastroschisis can have some weak belly muscles, so it is important to make sure that Avery has good abs! She's gotta show off that pretty belly that Dr. Parker made for her!

We also put Avery in the swing for the first time yesterday and she loved it! We kept her in for a long time and she was super content and loved looking up to watch the little mobile above her.

We are looking forward to Avery's first 4th of July! She is sad to miss the fireworks outside but we will have some pretend ones in her room!