Progress; 3 Pounds, and First Try with a Bottle

A quick update to say Caili is doing really well. She's starting to add weight more consistently, and now weighs a whopping 3 pounds!

Lauren and I gave her a bath tonight, which was amazing. She actually seems to enjoy her baths, and it's by far the best way to interact with her, as she's incredibly alert and active. It was a bit scary, and it's not so easy because we actually put the basin in her isolette. It's tight working quarters, but that helps her to stay nice and warm.

She's been sucking on a pacifier--a tiny little one--for the last several weeks. The nurses gave us a bigger one and have been saying she should graduate to it soon, and that her next big milestone would be to suck, swallow and breath. That coordinated effort isn't so easy for tiny little girl with injured lungs.

Well, tonight the nurse helped us try the bigger pacifier, and Caili loved it. So that inspired the nurse to take the next step, and give Caili a bottle! It was incredibly frightening, but yet very exciting. And adorable. Caili was a bit shocked when she first got a mouth full of the milk, and she wasn't sure quite what to do. So she held her breath. And then spit it out. And then the monitors went off because her oxygen got low. But she calmed back down and the nurse tried again, and she seemed to do it. Just a couple of swallows, but still, it was great! We're still a long way from her being able to truly eat--her oxygen flow needs to come down substantially--but this was a great step in that direction.

Obviously we continue to be thrilled and very, very thankful about how well she's doing. Our only minor disappointment at the moment is that her feeding schedule has all but eliminated our ability to hold her. They run her feeds into her feeding tube via a pump over three hours, and then give her one hour off before they start the next 3 hour feed. They don't want us to hold her when she's eating, and since they moved her to this schedule she hasn't tolerated being held right after she eats. We're hoping they'll soon switch her to 2 hour feeds with 2 hours rest, as the second hour of rest would be perfect holding time, but right now sleeping and growing are the main priorities anyway. As Lauren points out, normally she'd still have 6 more weeks gestation to go, and if she were still gestating we'd just be feeling her kicks on Lauren's belly.

As always, thank you all for your thoughts and prayers!