In any case, my lovely mama has Jakob this morning, and sweet Ellie-belle in in her bouncy chair, snoozing after breakfast. I just did some work for my mom, I'm having a cup of coffee, and have a few minutes to spare :)
So, Ellie came home last Thursday. I can't believe she's almost been home for a week. She has changed more than I ever though was possible. When we were in the hospital, the girl slept all day, wouldn't wake for feeds, wouldn't make eye contact, wouldn't do much of anything. I fought to bring her home, and I got to bring her home. Now, with my hands on her all day long, she is finally coming around. She's the sweetest little thing, and being with her family all day and night, she's spending more time awake. I think yesterday, she would have been awake close to three hours! I know that doesn't sound like much, but to progress from less than half an hour in a day, to three hours in a day, is amazing! She looks around, she smiles, she tracks. Best of all... SHE EATS. Okay, she still takes most of her feeds by tube, but yesterday, she nursed once, and had three partial bottle feeds, taking almost a whole feed each time (leaving maybe 10 mls). I've been determined to get her to oral feed, but I don't want to push her too much, so I went out and bought a bunch of different bottles, and she settled on one! She does so well.
Oh, and even better than the eating... she has started CRYING! Granted, it's the most pathetic excuse for a cry I have ever heard (I actually didn't hear it the first time, I was too asleep- it was Jay who sprang out of bed asking "is she okay? is she okay?!!?"), but the girl is making herself known. Ah, it's incredible.
For the first few days, I was awesome about sticking to the 3 hours on the dot feeds. But, that's really tough to do with a little guy running around, and I have come to loathe baby meal-time. Every time the alarm goes off, I change her diaper, wash my hands, go to the kitchen, warm the bottle of EBM (expressed breast milk), add a teaspoon of formula for calories - don't want my "failure-to-thrive" baby to not stick to her little curve! then I go upstairs, either put her in her bouncy chair, or in the bassinette. I draw out the air from her ng tube, test the residuals to make sure the pH is right, make sure the placement marker is at the right spot, flush the tube with 1ml of sterile water, hook up the big syringe, hang it from the nail in the wall above where she is (we have lots of nails around the house, specifically for feeding in different rooms), pour the milk into the syringe, make sure it starts flowing, then, I set myself up at the pump, and pump while she is eating. Then, I unhook the syringe when she's done, burp her, flush out the tube again, put her down, rinse out the syringe, put the EBM bottles in the fridge, throw out the diaper, go back upstairs, set the alarm to go off for the next feed, and try to sleep! It's quite the ordeal.
Because I like my sleep so much, a couple times I slept through the alarm. Well, go figure that Ellie would actually have the chance to feel hungry, and what-do-you-know, she protests! She wakes up when she's hungry, and I've figured out that if she's really hungry, she will actually work for her food, so PO feeds are going well.
We went for a walk yesterday, it was awesome. I am not quite used to the people who look at her and are shocked at how small she is. To me, she's massive! Perspective, I suppose. Ooh, she's fussing. I just have a sec to add some pictures. I promise to update the next time I get a free moment!
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