Our preemie doesn't know she's a preemie

Ella in the dress Great Grandma Carol made for her

Great Grandma Carol holding Ella for the first time <3

35 days old/days in NICU

Weight: 3 lbs 8.5 oz ( +1 oz)

That's what we keep getting told. So far, about 4 nurses in the ICC have told us that Ella doesn't know she's a preemie haha. She acts like a tiny full term baby with how awesome of a breast feeder she is, how awake she is and how aware she is. In all ways, Ella is doing fabulous except for her O2 needs. She went up to 1.5 liters of pressure on her cannula and is getting more doses of the diuretics. If this doesn't work, they may have to put her back onto the high flow cannula and possibly give her another dosage of the steroids. The good thing is though she was doing better this afternoon, with her O2 needs around 40%, compared to 60% yesterday so it DOES appear to have worked. Also, whenever Ella is being held, especially if we're doing kangaroo care with her, her O2 needs drop DRASTICALLY. Like, 10-20%. If anyone ever doubts the power of kangaroo care, you send them my way. Kangaroo care drops Ella's O2 needs AND it brought my milk in. 

In one of the outfits Meghan got for her

Last night I stayed the night and Ella did some really good breastfeeding. Then, this afternoon I was doing K-care with her and she started fussing and banging her face against my chest. I thought she wanted to be repositioned so I tried that and then I felt a little open mouth rooting around on my chest! I brought her to breast and BAM, 11 minutes of nursing!! It was awesome! She is doing SO well, I just can't believe it. 

Tomorrow I'm spending the entire day at the ICC to work on breastfeeding. The sooner she can take all her feedings by breast (and/or bottle) the sooner she comes home so we're being pretty aggressive about me being at the ICC these days. I'm staying 3 nights a week and am planning on spending one weekend day there (the entire day). I worry about Olivia and the effect it will have on her but so far it's been okay because she has Grandma (my mom) whom she absolutely adores. She's actually started telling me to go see Ella because she wants to see Grandma! haha I'm sure there were some other things I wanted to talk about but I'm dead tired after about 4.5 hours of sleep in the NICU last night.