Mary is slowly working towards catching up with her brother and sister.  She now weighs 2lbs 10.6 ounces and is getting 22 mL of milk at every feeding.  When the babies were first born, Mary was about 5 ounces lighter than Elizabeth.  Now she is about 17 ounces lighter than Elizabeth.  The couple of weeks when she was sick and not getting milk really put her behind weight-wise.  So, the doctor is focusing on trying to put some weight on her quickly.  To do that they're going to be increasing the amount she gets fed by 1mL at every other feeding until she gets to 25 mL.  She should reach this goal sometime tomorrow afternoon, which means the next day they'll re-evaluate and consider increasing her feeds even more.  They are still feeding Mary through the tube in her nose, but said that once she gains some more weight they'll let her start trying to bottle feed.

In addition to trying to gain weight, the doctor is also trying to get Mary to start regulating her own body temperature.  They want her to do this so she can join her brother and sister in the open crib.  They have slowly been lowering the temperature in her isolette to try to achieve this goal.  Right now the temperature is set at 29.5 degrees Celsius.  It needs to be at 28 degrees Celsius (and she has to maintain a body temp in the 98's) in order for her to come out of the isolette.  

Finally, the doctor decided that Mary is well enough now to take her off of her medicines and remove her PICC line!  She had been on Reglan and Zantac for her reflux, as well as caffeine for her apnea.  So, she will still get her vitamins, but these other meds will be stopped.  If she starts to have problems again, then they'll consider putting her back on the meds.  As for the PICC line, this is huge!  First, it's a possible source of infection, so it's great that they're getting rid of it for that reason.  But also it's an important step in getting her out of the isolette and in a crib with her brother and sister.  So, a big day for Mary!  She's starting to catch up and we're excited about that!