12/07/09 1Kg

December 7, 2009 by Jason.

Juliana continues to wean well on the ventilator, with her rate turned down to 20 and her pressures to 14 over 4. We spoke with the new attending, Dr. Viscardi, for a few minutes this afternoon. The plan is to keep weaning her down to around 15 for her rate and then to give her a quick course of steroids before they try to put her on the Bi-PAP again later this week. Her thinking is that there is a potential narrowing her trachea below her vocal cords from irritation caused by intubation. Steroids would reduce the inflammation and cause her to breathe easier. So, that is the plan going forward. Her feeds were increased to 0.4 ml per hour continuously so we are hoping she will tolerate that well and begin to gain in size and strength. Her current weight is 1020 grams, so she weighs a little over 1 Kilogram (2 lbs, 4 oz)! This afternoon, both Jen and I had a chance to kangaroo with her. I held her for about 45 minutes and then traded off with Jen for 45 minutes. We have come home for the night to take care of a few things tomorrow, but should be heading back tomorrow.

A word about names . . . (from Jen)
We have received many comments and questions about the babies’ names, and I thought I’d address the topic here.

Juliana Skye: It was our desire to choose names that are unique but not too weird. We didn’t want our children to be burdened with hard-to-spell or -pronounce names. However, we have already had some confusion with Juliana’s name. So, to clarify for everyone out there: her name is pronounced like the two names “Julie” and “Anna” put together, NOT like Juli-ahna. I guess the spelling has caused confusion as well. We chose to spell her name with one “n” instead of two. We’re also not crazy about shortening her name at this point. We are calling her Juliana with no nicknames. Her middle name, Skye, is after the Isle of Skye in northern Scotland which we visited several years ago with Paul and Alita. It’s a lovely place; you should travel there if you get a chance, recently voted “4th best island in the world by National Geographic magazine,” according to the Isle of Skye website.

Zoe Janine: Zoe’s middle name is after my sister Karen Janeen (although spelled differently). We’ll see them both very soon in heaven.

Eden Aurelia: We just thought this name was beautiful. I guess it’s fitting that the next time we see her, we will be in the new earth–the perfectly recreated Garden of Eden.

Thanks again to everyone for following the website updates. We continue to receive strength and encouragement from your comments and prayers. We may be able to post a photo again tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Posted in News | 10 Comments »