Well, hello again! 8 days between posts and the reason for the delay, apart from my ability to procrastinate, is that no news equals good news! Lucy has gone from strength to strength this past week. We'll let the numbers tell this story:

Last Monday (12/3):
Body Weight:          1130 grams
Continuous PEEP:   9cm H2O
FiO2:                      60%

Today (20/3):

Body Weight:          1312 grams
Continuous PEEP:   7cm H2O
FiO2:                      30%

Body weight is fairly self explanatory, though it's worth noting that although a 16% increase in 8 days is great going, she's still got a long way to go until she hits the mean first-world birth weight (3200 grams). the Continuous PEEP value is the amount of pressure the CPAP machine is delivering with each assisted breath Lucy makes. Obviously, when less pressure is required from the machine it means Lucy's doing more of the breathing work herself. She's down to 7, and when she gets to 4 or 5 the doctors will begin to trial her with no additional breathing support at all. The final number shows the level of oxygen she's given through the CPAP machine, and again, because lower numbers are better, she's trending in the right direction.When she hits 21% she'll be breathing the same amount of oxygen that's in our atmosphere which is obviously the ultimate goal.

Taking off my nerd/stats hat, on top of all of this she looks great! It's probably hard to tell from the photos, but she actually has some meat on her tiny bones now, and her colour is much healthier too. Today's offering was a rush job that Robyn was able to snap whilst the nurses were doing her scheduled cares for the day. I think you'll agree that it looks like she's relishing the chance to have a good stretch out whilst she's not lying on her tummy! I'll endeavour to update within a week next time, but please remember, if I don't get around to it then all must be well :-)