According to the Babycenter.com, if Peanut was still in my belly (we’re just over two weeks out from her due date), they would compare her current size/weight to that of a honeydew melon. Throughout my pregnancy I would get weekly emails comparing her size to various fruits or vegtables…the kids, as well as the DH and I, found this very entertaining! Well, our little honeydew sure is growing! She is now 7 weeks old, and is 5lbs 3oz and 17 inches long! Despite last week’s set back with her intolerance to fortifier, she is growing just fine – slow and steady.

Very alert after her feeding! She now up to 1 ounce per feeding.

You can see she’s really filling out!

Wednesday was a challenging day for Peanut, as she was having problems with low body temperature, shallow breathing and was very tired. Earlier in the week, we noticed that her incision was becoming increasingly “angry” looking (as her doctor put it). And on Wednesday, along with her other symptoms, the incision looked much worse. Both the surgeons and her neonatologist agreed they thought there was an infection brewing, so they started a course of antibiotics. Within a few hours her body temp came up (with some help from a warmer bed and snuggling with daddy) and she was breathing easier. Thankfully, the blood cultures all came back negative for infection in the blood stream, however, her incision tested positive for Staph infection. It’ll take another day or so to get the results back on exactly which strand of staph that it is – MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staph) or MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staph). The antibiotics that she’s currently on, gentamicin and vancomycin, would treat and kill either type of infection.

The surgeons were pretty surprised that Peanut got an infection this far out from her last surgery (1 month), and were not happy with the way the incision was healing. Their theory is that Peanut is not properly absorbing the protein in the milk. Protein and zinc are both vital in helping the body heal, so they increased the amount of protein and zinc in her IV nutrition. The incision looks much better today, it’s obvious the inflammation has gone down considerably, however she still has a lot of drainage.

Peanut also had a fluoroscopy colon series contrast x-ray done yesterday (I had to have our nurse spell out the name for me and repeat it several times). With this test, they were able to look at how much of a rectum she has left so they can determine a time frame on when they will do the next surgery and what type of procedure they will do – whether they have to access through the belly or the anus to connect the small intestine. The results showed that she has all of her sphincter muscles intact (which will help with control) as well as a short stump of rectum above the sphinter. The surgeon said ideally they would have liked to have had more rectum to work with, but the amount she has left is enough that they can reconnect the intestine through the belly, rather than the challenge of accessing it through the anus. Still no word on when they might do the next surgery…we need to get the staff infection cleared up and incision completely healed before they will determine that.

Tomorrow is the first home game for the Iowa Hawkeyes (vs. ISU) – we’re told it gets a little crazy around here on game days!