NICU day 7

The past 24 hours have been filled with good news for Daniela.

Last night, they began normal feedings and I'm happy to report that she took to the bottle like a fish to water. She's done so well with it that they increased her amount from 10 ml per feeding to 30. They've also begun to wean her off the IV; the volume she's receiving today has been reduced to a third of what she was originally getting. She also has been moved from a warmer to an isolette and she may be moved to a crib tonight or tomorrow.

A and I had the pleasure of feeding her today at both 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. It was divine. To get to hold her, cuddle, burp her (that's my girl!), change her diaper, etc....lovely. She even opened her eyes and we spent a few minutes checking each other out. After all, she's been so out of it, she hasn't seen me in a week so she's probably wondering who the hell the lady with the dark hair is who's all up in her face. We're heading back tonight for the 8 p.m. feeding and some more quality snuggle time. I can't get enough of it, and to see her face without that vent tube in her mouth...it doesn't get much better than that (until, of course, the day I'm looking at her pretty face in the comfort of our own home).

Today, the pediatric hematologist stopped by to tell us that so far the hematology labs that have come back have all been normal. He's so confident that the remaining tests (those that won't be back until next week) will be normal as well, that he noted her chart as such and will call us only if it turns out that something comes back abnormal. Alas, he doesn't expect it to but if it does, he assured us that it would be nothing huge and it would mean only that she'd need to get the lab(s) repeated at 6 months to recheck them.

There was more talk today while we were at the hospital that Daniela may get to come home this weekend. However, I know to take that with a grain of salt and just play it day-by-day.

Tomorrow they'll run another EEG to check for seizure activity and do another phenobarb level to make sure it's decreasing nicely. Thankfully, they were able to get enough blood from her without depleting her supply so no transfusion--yea!!

I know a lot of times, good news in the NICU consists of one step forward, two steps back but we've been the lucky recipients of several good steps forward yesterday and today without the resultant step back. How I hope this continues :-)

Thank you, thank you, thank you for the continued love.