4/18/2011 (34 weeks, 3 days)

Had a false alarm last week when we thought Eleanor was coming home Thursday.  She ended up having an apnea Wed night and so they had to restart the going-home countdown.  She needs to be apnea-free for 5 days before she can come home.  Right now she's on day 4.  I'm not going to explain what that means because I don't want to jinx anything.  Baby girl is up to 4lbs 10oz and is eating about twice as much as they had been giving her before they let her set her own pace.  I need to try and meet with the occupational therapist to practice bottle-feeding.  Bottle-feeding preemies is a process, and I'm not even particularly practiced feeding term babies as I nursed my other three.  I've fed Eleanor once from a bottle and it didn't go well, but I've nursed her a few times and that seems to work out fine.
Special thanks to Ms. Gayle for the beautiful outfit, Candy Pei for the outfit and bath set, and for the Baton Rouge Sigma Alumnae Chapter for lunch last weekend.  It was very yummy!  Grace said the salad was particularly "well-prepared", lol!

4/12/11 Big News!

 Somebody is coming home this week!  

We won't be up for visitors for a few more weeks.  She'll still be on the monitor and won't be able to nurse exclusively for a while (more pumping for me- blech!)  But like Sean says, it will be nice to have the whole family under one roof.

4/8/2011 (33 weeks gestational age)

I'm not going to mention any names, but someone is 4lbs .02oz today.  She took 3 bottles yesterday and the Dr. said she did really good.  I will try to breastfeed either tonight or tomorrow.

I went shopping for the rest of the baby supplies today.  It helped to feel like I had a little control over something.  I need to finish getting the house ready, though.  I think she'll be ready to come home soon and I don't want her coming home to a toxic waste dump.

4/3/2011 (32 weeks, 2 days)

Well, we had our first scare yesterday.  Eleanor was having low oxygen and some heart rate drops again and we thought they'd have to put her back on the oxygen.  They had just upped her caffeine, though, and the Dr. decided to wait and see how that worked out before making any other changes.
 Today, of course, our littlest overachiever had to outdo everyone's wildest expectations.  When I got there this afternoon, not only was she off of the oxygen, but she hadn't had any rate drops today and only one last night.  She was also 3lbs, 11.9oz (a gain of almost 3 oz from yesterday), 17 inches long, and had eaten from a bottle (she scored a 10/10 on that, but I'm not sure what that means yet.)  Plus, she was out of the incubator and in an isolette!  So, for those of you keeping score at home, that's breathing- check!  Body temp regulating- check!  And all we have left is bottle feeding- in progress.  I also have a suspicion that there's an unofficial policy that they have to be at least 4lbs before they're allowed to go home, but that's probably just me and she's almost there anyway.
There's a ton of photos since I haven't posted in a few days, but they are chronological from the top down and the pink-hat ones at the bottom are from today.

Practicing for the bottle-lympics.

This is my favorite photo yet.

Elle's new digs.  Great view, but no heat or a/c.