Quick update.

Apparently, Zoe wrote her neonatologist a letter last night. I hear it went something like this:

Dear Dr. X

Please send me home. I promise to eat and grow so that I will soon be strong enough to steal...I mean borrow...my big sisters markers and color on moms walls. Also, my two year old brother has decided to take over my crib. We all know that I can not have THAT.

Thank You.

Sincerely,
Zoe Math


Now, I am of course just guessing as to the exact content, of course. Mr. Green

Soooo...The dr. had sympathy for mom and we talked about what is going on. Here is the story:

Zoe continues to improve on the amount of the bottles she is taking. She is really getting the hang of it now. The problem is her weight gain. Despite taking in *gulp* adequate calories (outside of what she is spitting on her washrag, of course) her weight gain continues to be what he calls marginal.

She is weighed daily and last night she gained 2 grams. Apparently, she is supposed to gain upwards of 30 grams (1 ounce) a day. I thought it was ~5grams. I was wrong.

I asked if her length of stay for a feeder and a grower was unusual and he replied that it was definitiely on the extreme end of the spectrum. She has had no real medical issues.

I asked if she might possibly have brain damage which is affecting her ability to learn to eat etc. He replied that it was a possibility but that we are all also very sensitive to Zoe because we know her history of exposure to chemotherapy.

He said they will be watching her after she goes home too. Apparently, they do follow-up 6,12,18, 24 month and 4 year visits to the neonatologist if born early.

Obviously, my paranoid, freaky mom concern is that she has brain damage.

I also took in some information about anemia of prematurity that I had found online and printed out to discuss with the doc:> . She currently has some anemia with a hematocrit of 30.4% and a low reticulocyte count. I found some info that says that poor feeding, poor weight gain and lethargy can be symptoms of anemia. I pointed this out to our poor doc and he said he does not think that her hematocrit etc is low enough to cause it. It is, however low enough to be listed as one of her problems...but I dont know enough about all of this to formulate an educated opinion one way or the other.

They have upped her calorie content to 27 calories and if she is able to toelrate it well and gain weight over the next several days then she will be able to come home. We will likely need to rent a scale to monitor her weight daily.