15 days old

Running down the list of Charlotte's hurdles:

MRSA in nose - on antibiotic treatment for 5 days (this is day 2) and then follow-up testing twice to confirm it has resolved

Pneumatosis - No further evidence of any gas in the bowel wall on the last 4 x-rays. They're pretty sure they caught it in time and with the right antibiotics that it did no permanent damage. Charlotte finally pooed twice yesterday (after 5 days) so that is a great sign that her bowel is getting back to work. She still won't get food for another 5 days and is getting grumpy about having an empty stomach, but a pacifier or a finger seem to soothe her. At the end of the no food period, she'll have a contrast enema to confirm that everything is healthy and ready to get back in to action. Apparently a twin preemie in another NICU room wasn't as lucky to find the pneumatosis in time and didn't make it. The nurses have credited us with noticing something wasn't right with Charlotte and bringing it to their attention, potentially saving her life - something we hadn't even considered was a risk to them in light of the other preemie problems we were focused on.

Spinal fluid - They did get a clean spinal fluid sample and the initial result that looks for elevated white blood cell counts was unclear - not because of the lab or the sample but because the nurse didn't know how to read the results (I'm not terribly happy with this one's confidence levels or knowledge. She never seems to know the answers to my questions.) We'll ask someone else tomorrow. The bacteria (Bacillus) that grew the first time would still take a few days to grow this time if it is really there in her spinal fluid and not just a contaminant, so it will be awhile before we know anything.

Staph - This is new. The blood cultures came back this morning and showed that Charlotte does have staph in her blood stream, so they've adjusted her antibiotics to cover that as well.

The good news is that behaviorally Charlotte isn't giving any indication of not feeling well, so its hard to imagine all of this going on inside her little body. Today she was crying because she had shimmied out of her swaddling and wanted to be wrapped back up again. Once she was comforted, she was as content as could be.

Also good news: We talked it over with infection control and were told that although she has to remain on isolation precautions, I could still hold Lilah without gloves (but with robe) as long as I hadn't been in Charlotte's area yet. I held little L skin to skin for almost 2 hours and it was heavenly. I think she's making all the signs that she's ready to actually eat, not just through a tube, so we're going to talk to them about attempting a bottle tomorrow *fingers crossed* She's now 3lb 3 oz and continues to grow. Lilah is also maintaining her body temp very well with each increment they bring down the isolette, so it should only be a matter of days before the top of the isolette is removed!

I held Charlotte for about an hour after being with Lilah and I still feel bad that I can't be there for her more because isolation really does leave her isolated and in need of more interaction than she's getting. They finally had to kick me out because the nurses shift change at 7 means no one can be present to hear the status updates of the other babies. Well, with every day that goes by, I guess we're one closer to having her be done with all of this.