900 grams

Caley is up to 900 grams! (That's just 7 grams shy of 2 pounds, by the way.) Her milk volume is up to 4 ml per hour, which was going to be her initial "full feed" volume. But because she's doing so well growing, they're going to work her up to 5.5 ml per hour over the next few days. And then it should be time to consider removing her PICC (central) line, and stopping the TPN and lipid supplementation.

Caley's CRP level came back normal today, which means that whatever infection she had, it's gone. Her hematocrit was still pretty low even after a week of EPO, but her reticulocyte count was good. As best as we understand it, she's making red blood cells, but a lot of them aren't fully matured yet. They started her on iron today to help, trying to avoid another blood transfusion if possible.

Other than that, Caley had a good day. She's doing great on the cannula and her lungs seem to be stronger now. The nurse weaned her from 3L of oxygen flow to 2L with no apparent problem. And while Marie was holding Caley this afternoon, she weaned down to 24% oxygen.

Caley is starting to have more periods of alertness, and "looks" around a lot. (We know she can't actually see much at this point, but she does seem to follow light and shadows with her eyes, which is a good sign.) While she was being held this afternoon, we also got Caley to take a preemie pacifier for quite some time. This too is a good sign. Many preemies who are tube-fed for an extended time period later have an "oral aversion" and don't want to take a bottle. So we'll keep encouraging her to suck on a pacifier as much as possible, and hopefully reduce the chances of that problem arising later.

Finally, Caley definitely is back to being feisty! She keeps trying to pull out her feeding tube and her cannula (which was completely out of her nose when Marie got to the hospital today), so unless she's being held, she has lost "hand privileges" for now -- complete swaddling for Caley.

Tomorrow is Caley's one-month birthday, and we're hoping for another calm one.