NICU- WEEK 3

Our Baby girl is two weeks old!

Day 15:
She is still doing so good with feedings.  So good that the doctor said maybe she will come home this weekend!  We're trying not to get our hopes up but we know it will be very soon!
All the nurses fell in love with her so they don't want her to come home.
She is up 15 grams.
Today she had her biggest serving of 40 ml in her bottle.  She only had 10 ml more to go.
We are so proud of her!
Today she had a full out cry for me with a quivering tongue and all.
This picture is a bit blurry but... she is now recognizing that she is hungry and wants milk!

Day 16:
Baby girl did awesome with her feedings.  She had two bottles in a row that she drank the entire bottle!  It took a lot of work but she got it done.
Shawn took Friday off of work so we spent a good amount of time with Reece while the Ava and Adisyn were in school.
The nurses joke that I have enough breast milk for the entire NICU.  So pumping is going great!  Now that I've established a supply the first few weeks I've started to skip a session in the middle of the night to try to get 6 hours straight of sleep.  Usually I wake up uncomfortable and have to pump anyway but I'm taking advantage of a slight break until she comes home.
I couldn't help but to call the NICU last night to see how feedings were going.  She didn't finish the entire bottle but almost half of it.
I'm certain now she won't be coming home this weekend but hopefully Monday or Tuesday.  A Mom can dream!
We keep her car seat in the car in the event they say she's ready for her car seat test.
We ended up getting Ava and Adisyn new booster seats that are much slimmer so they can more easily fit in the back seat.  We could get a new car with 3rd row but we are really trying hard to pay it off so we will make it work.

(These pictures aren't the greatest, the lighting in the NICU is not photo friendly, plus we're not supposed to use flash as it could startle her)

Reece is starting to get chunky and its the cutest!  Even though she is the second youngest baby in the NICU she is the biggest!

Day 17:
She's up 25 grams!
She has also nipple fed her last two bottles.  She didn't do as well last night which could be because she was so worn out.  It's a lot of work for a preemie to eat!
We started using the Dr Brown bottles at feedings.  She does so much better with them.  She has been super gassy too so hopefully that will help.
She was even more awake than usual after a feeding.  I just couldn't leave her until she was peacefully asleep.  So I stared obsessively until her precious eyes closed.

Day 18:
Reece has been doing so well with her feedings I couln't wait to call the NICU once I woke.  We knew she needed to get all feedings by bottle and gain wait for 24 hours before her feeding tube could be removed.  She did it!  Sunday she had her feeding tube removed!

First picture without all the tubes, tape, and IV.  She even posed so cute for me!

Day 19:
She gained yet again!
Feedings have continued to go well.
Her doctor personally called me for an update and to send her well wishes.  She was simply amazing and really formed a bond with Reece.  I am forever grateful to her.
She passed her hearing test.
Today we brought her car seat in.  As the car seat test was the last test she had.

Day 20:
I knew it was either today or tomorrow she would be released.  I had an intuition to go earlier than usual.  The doctors do their rounds in the morning typically.  It's a good thing I was there because Reece was still doing well and passed her car seat test but unfortunately dropped 5 grams.  Her doctor wasn't crazy about it but did understand at this point there wasn't much they were doing that we couldn't do at home.  After a talk together he felt I was prepared to take care of her considering we had preemie twins.  That was that we were released by her doctor.  I kept my composure until they left and a gust of emotions hit me.  So many thoughts were going through my mind.  Nervous, excited, happy.  I broke down and cried.  I couldn't hold it back as hard as I tried!  I immediately text Shawn the good news he hurried home and we drove together.  I wanted to sit in the back with her on the drive home.  Just like with our twins Shawn drove extra slow and cautious.

Her outfit was just a tad big!  How fast she will quickly out grow it.