Each day is a blessing!

8 days old/days in the NICU

Weight: 3 lbs 1 oz (-2 ounces of water weight-YAY!)

Health Update: Today was another good day in the NICU! Ella is totally weaned off her blood pressure meds and is keeping her BP steady by herself. VERY exciting! She no longer needs a catheter and actually PEED IT OUT! ha ha I laughed when they told me that. She is peeing very good now and is losing some of that water retention. I didn't realize that she had gained several ounces of water retention and was over 3 lbs. I realize that SOUNDS good but it's not the kind of weight she should be gaining because it's all swelling since she isn't peeing like she's supposed to. After they gave her the two dosages of the diuretics though, it really helped and she's finally losing some of that water retention. You could definitely see that she didn't have as much swelling today. I talked to the nurse today and she said they think she'll be off the vent and on CPAP or the nasal cannula within the next day or two. That's really exciting but I won't be too disappointed if it doesn't happen in the next day or two. I've kind of come to the conclusion these days that I know she will be off that vent one of these days and as long as she's alive and slowly getting better, I"ll take it. I guess I just have a whole new view of life after we came so close to losing her. Her x-ray from today was WAY better then it had been and you can definitely tell that her pneumonia is slowly clearing up. She's still working on getting that junk out of her chest. Tomorrow night, I'm going to spend the night at the hospital and I'm super excited because the doctor and nurse feel that she's finally well enough to start back onto Kangaroo Care. We're so lucky that we have a nurse who absolutely adores Ella (she requests her!!) and is extremely pro kangaroo care and has been pushing for it. Before this, she really was too sick for it though. She would get really distressed during her cares and had to be sedated most of the time. She's finally starting to feel a little bit better though so tomorrow night, I should be able to hold her again!! I'm so excited! 

You can see a difference from yesterday in the swelling!

Olivia has been such a trooper during all of this! She definitely is acting out and has some EXTREME separation anxiety with anyone but my mom, but I think she's great considering the circumstances. She knows Ella and she knows that Ella is her sister. She tells people that Ella is her sister and today she told me that she loved Ella and that Ella was her sister. I about melted and died from the cuteness. I thank God that I have Olivia. Having her makes this easier in a way because I have her to help me take the focus off of being sad or worried. Not that the worry isn't constantly there, but Olivia makes us laugh or constantly amazes us with how incredibly intelligent she is! During the time I was in the hospital, she had another word explosion and now has multiple sentences! Yesterday, I was in the bathroom brushing my hair and she yelled out "Mama! Where are you?" Today, I brought her outside in the front of our apartments to play with her bike and she ended up playing in the mud. Eh, whatever, kids are washable. But then she got all upset because she was dirty. She's turning into quite the little girly girl and HATES being dirty! When her hands get dirty, she holds them up and says "I dirty! I dirty!" and makes us wash them. I just can't believe how much I love my two girls!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Pictures of Olivia playing outside today