Still improving

So, little Ro has been improving mostly, but hit a tiny bit of a snag today.  As with most preemies, Rowyn has jaundice.  Her levels had been going down (good) until yesterday.  She was off of the bilirubin lights (which remove jaundice) because she was doing good, but for some reason the levels went up overnight.  The NICU put her back on the heavy duty lights to cut down on the levels and it seems to be working.  They checked her blood tonight and it looks like the lights have knocked it down a fair amount.  Hopefully she won't need the lights for more than a day or so.  Other than that, everything seems to be improving.  She weighs 3lb 10oz....up from 3lb 9oz yesterday and 3lb 8oz the day before.  They say an ounce a day is great.  She is still eating (from a feeding tube) pretty well and she's able to hold down most of her food.  The nurses up her feeding amounts pretty much daily, but I think they tried too much (28cc) earlier today, so she spit a little bit of it up.  Tonight they decided to knock it back down to 25cc.  They also decided to switch her to formula instead of momma's milk for a few days.  Apparently, in a roundabout way, this will help remove the bilirubin and thus, get rid of the jaundice.  They've started trying to get Rowyn to accept a bottle, but it's really hard for her to coordinate that while she's got a feeding tube in her mouth....so hopefully they can figure that out soon.  From what I've read, 34 weeks is when babies start developing the coordination between sucking, breathing and swallowing.  Rowyn is technically at 33 weeks, so maybe in the next few days she can get that coordination down and start feeding off of a bottle. That'll be a major hurdle.  She'll be able to come off the IV after that and that means we can hold her as much as we can handle!  We're looking extremely forward to that day!  Keep little Rowyn (and Katie) in your thoughts!  Thanks!

-Chris