Still Here

The last couple of days have started to try our patience a little, but only because we’re so ready to be done. Ellie is still doing great. She’s been getting her bottle feeding every 3 hours and what we’re waiting for right now is for her to eat all of them, which she’s not doing yet. Sometimes she’ll take the whole bottle, sometimes she just gets too worn out to finish and the rest has to go down her tube. We’re trying not to feel disappointed every time she doesn’t finish, as we know we won’t get to go home until she can master this eating thing. And we really need to go home. We’re almost at a month here. Sigh.

As for happier things, look at how beautiful our daughter is:

When it comes down to it though, we’re so proud of her. She’s still doing great, she’s trying really hard to eat, it’s just hard for a 35 week old baby sometimes. She also passed her hearing test yesterday, so that’s a plus. Also, our little chunker is now up to 5 lbs 11 oz – she’s pretty much full term baby size and will be out of her newborn clothes before we know it! I’ll have to put her in multiple outfits a day when she gets home just so she can wear everything before she outgrows it 🙂

Today (probably) we’ll do her car seat test, which is where they sit her in her car seat for an hour and make sure all of her stats stay good the whole time (she breathes, she maintains o2 levels, etc.) As preemies have a less developed respiratory system, they just want to make sure they can handle the angle of the car seat long enough to get home (and still breathe). It’s also why they really don’t want us running errands with her for awhile after she gets home and to never sleep in the car seat. Hopefully that will go well and will be one more thing clearing her for discharge.

Just because this is a blog about a baby, I have to share something that only parents will truly appreciate. The nurse this morning called Ellie a ‘poop shooter’ and that pretty much sums it up. This kid likes to wait until you have her diaper off and butt in the air to poop – and then it flies across the room. Well, that might be an exaggeration  but it does go a foot or two. Seriously. Doesn’t matter if you cycle her legs first, let her diaper be off for awhile, give her a few, she knows when you’re not ready for it. We’ll have to put a splash guard on the wall at home or something 😉  Ok. Gross (but amusing) baby moment over.

So, we’re pretty much fingers crossed she’ll keep eating all of her food (she had 2 bottles in a row today) and hopefully the light at the end of this tunnel will get closer.

And lastly, look who got a pretty mobile today which will hopefully keep her calm while we take her temperature and change her diaper.