Little Lily Update

As of yesterday Lily has progressed a ton! I got there at around 11 am and was able to go to the "rounds" for Lily, that's where all of the nurses and doctors do inform everyone of her status and then give orders for the day. On Tuesday and Wednesday they were concerned when they were taking x-rays of Lily's lungs and found that she had air accumulating in between the outer lining of her lung and her lung itself. They kept taking x-rays and found that the problem was fixing itself and by yesterday morning the air had been reabsorbed by her lungs. Good! They had also been worried about her irregular or fast breathing. They knew that just time would heal that and so it did. They said that she was looking a lot better, they had reduced her nasal canula to 1 liter of oxygen per minute and then even down to 1/2 liter. So she doesn't really even need the nasal canula going up her nose, I expect that when I go in this morning they may not even have it in. Before she had this fancy cool "cake plate" as my mom called it that was giving her air by mouth and also the nasal canula through the nose. In the picture below you can see the cake plate over her head, it also gave her a little moisture so she was getting quite the facial for her sensitive skin.

The lights that are shining down on her in the above picture are for her Billirubin levels which were a little high so they were shining the lights on her to keep her from being jaundiced. That cleared up too so the lights are off! Yay!!

A better picture of the cake plate, above. She had to wear special spongy goggles to cover her eyes while under the special Billi lights so that they didn't harm her precious eyes.

So, off the cake plate and off the lights and no goggles!

We have been able to hold her more and more each day. Don't worry I soon got a blanket around her but you can see that she's not super tiny like Leah was. She's a good healthy size and even has a good double chin goin on. It's so cute! I just wish I could hold her without her being attached to all of those wires. Daddy time too!

I just thought I would capture a picture of her cute tiny toes. Yes, that is an IV sticking out of her foot. They have to change it a lot and rotate from hand to foot.

Her hair is probably the biggest shock to me. I can't believe there is so much of it and that it is as dark as it is. It's probably the softest thing I've ever felt and I'm always snuggling up to her with my cheeks and nose. She is so precious it breaks my heart to leave her each evening.
She is quite attached to the binky. She wants it in constantly and screams and cries if it's not in there. It goes to show that she will be a good nurser.

So before yesterday at 8 pm. I hadn't had a chance to really try and nurse her, but she had done so good that the nurse said we would try. We had been just waiting for her oxygen levels to go down and for her fast breathing to slow as well. So we tried and she latched right on sucked away but only for about a minute or two and then was so exhausted she zonked right out. She still needed to be fed so we got out some saved breast milk that I had pumped and put it in a bottle and stuck that in her mouth and she downed it in about 3 minutes. The bottle was a lot easier for her to handle right then instead of the breast but the nurse said that was normal and we'll try nursing again this morning. I'm excited because already I can tell that she is going to be way better than Leah. Leah just was a little too early and it was a lot harder for her. Well that's about it so far. I apologize beforehand if you call and I don't answer. While we are in the NICU we have to have our phones on silent mode and I don't always get the call. I also apologize for having to rotate people in only three at a time (one being me or Andrew) I just can't wait until we have her home and then we can have everyone see how beautiful she is. I know the kids are anxious to see her and I can't wait to see how Leah reacts to her new baby sister. We may have to film it. Until then just know that things are looking good and I'm thinking she'll be home in the next few days! Hallelujah!