Week 31, Day 2

I usually only see Hannah's face, since Carla goes in for "touch time" while I'm at work, and by the time I visit in the evening, she's swaddled up like a grub in the isolette. Preemies like to be wrapped up with limbs confined, since that's closer to what they'd be experiencing in the womb. Anyway, that means that weekends are when I get to see her during touch time, when her limbs are out and flailing about. We arm-wrestle a bit (so far I'm letting her win) and generally stare at each other for lack of conversational topics of common interest.

So, the upshot is that I haven't seem her arms and legs since last weekend, and I was struck today by how much they've plumped up in a week, particularly considering that she was off her feeds for a couple days while the air bubble worked its way through.

Here's a quick video of Hannah just after we woke her up. That's not her you hear crying on the video . . . that was another baby nearby. Hannah won't make any real noise until the ventilator tube comes out, although occasionally we hear a squeak or two. Note also the scalp IV back on her head, which she'll need for nutrition until she gets ramped back up on her feeds. The "E.T." light on her foot is the pulse oximeter, which shines a light through her skin and detects the oxygen level of the blood by how red it is.