Monica - Day 28

Good news.. Monica is Four weeks old and now weighs 1.775Kg (3.91 Lbs / 3 lbs, 14 oz).  She is certainly putting weight on nicely :-)

Today is blood transfusion day and we had a chance to quiz the doctors about the reasons behind this.  I asked the doctor, "So, do babies need blood transfusions because you take all of their blood for all of the tests that you do".  I was a little surprised when she answered "Yes", but appreciated the honesty nevertheless.

The blood transfusion went fine and we have noticed that Monica now has a lot more colour than beforehand.  Ironically it seems that the way that they will test to see if her hemoglobin levels are now back to where they need to be will be to... yep.. take more blood.

Much more positive is that Monica is having a lot fewer desaturations and bradycardias.  Her feeds have also been increased again; we'll not be able to pick her up quite so easily soon ;-)

Mummy having a cuddle while Monica has her morning brunch (by tube still).

Monica having her blood transfusion.

Daddy cuddling his little star while she is having her blood transfusion.  A nice long 2 hour cuddle :-)

Monica after her blood transfusion.  It's difficult to see on camera but she is much redder than beforehand.

Monica relaxed and having a look around after her blood transfusion.  I guess that it is only now that we're in a room with lots of other prem babies we can appreciate how unusual it is for a baby born at 28 weeks to have a full head of hair.  It's just normal to us, but looking around most of the other babies (even at 34+ weeks) don't have much hair.

Continue to Day 29