It Is As They Said It Would Be

After Malia was born, the doctors and nurses told us that progress would be one of those "one step forward, two steps backwards" deals.  And they were right.  After doing so well yesterday morning, Malia began to have trouble maintaining her body temperature again so she went back under the heat lamps.  Her blood sugar was better with the IV in, but she still wasn't feeding well so yesterday afternoon the pediatrician opted to taper off the IV fluids and place a feeding tube instead.  So now she feeds as much by mouth as she can before she gets too sleepy and then gets the rest through the tube.  So that would be the two steps back part.  After having enough to eat a few times, she is more alert when she is hungry which facilitates better feeding.  And getting enough nutrition means she is back to maintaining her body temperature.  So our current game plan is to keep feeding by mouth and by tube until Malia is feeding well enough on her own to be able to take the tube out.  I will be discharged tomorrow, but obviously she is not ready to go home yet.  We don't know when that will be.  Taking things one day at a time is part of the game as well.