Such a big girl

Well feedings have gone pretty well. Abigail starting nippling some of her feedings starting on Thursday. As of Saturday she had nippled 8 feedings and took the whole bottle each time. On Sunday they changed her orders to nipple per cues, meaning that at the feeding time if she was awake and showed cues of wanting a bottle then she would get to take a bottle or try to breastfeed. At that point Abigail decided don't rush me and she only took parts of her next several bottles offered. Over night Monday she decided she was ready again and took 2 bottles in a row and took another one at 11:30 am Tuesday. It is still important to give her breaks and gavage (feeding tube) some of her feeds so that she doesn't use too much energy feeding.

Giving a preemie a bottle: To feed Abigail we hold her in front on her side for 2 reasons.

1. She can protect her airway better on her side because the milk isn't going straight into her mouth
2. Whoever is giving her the bottle can pace her a little by tipping the bottle so that the nipple is only half full. When she takes a break in sucking then we tip the bottle down so she doesn't get extra milk.

Abigail likes her her mobile. I like it because it has the black and white designs on the circles and on different parts of the animals. (So many in the store are for the look of the nursery instead of whats appropriate for a baby) It is fun to watch her eyes lock onto one of the parts as it moves around and then see her catch another one and watch it move.

They tried her on no oxygen yesterday but she didn't make it. She is on a low flow of .1 oxygen (I don't know exactly what it means, but I do know that it is just like a little whiff) She can even handle the prongs being out of her nose as long as they are near her nose but if you take them completely off, she desaturates.

4lbs 15.6 oz!

She looks like Joshua!

One of our primary nurses is head on vacation on Wednesday and will be gone the next weekend and won't be back until the Sunday after. We are hopeful that we will get to go home before then. We love April so much and are so thankful she was part of our team. Lately our primaries schedules have seemed to overlap so we haven't seen April as much in the last 2 weeks. Thank you to 2 of our other primaries for letting April work with Abigail on Sunday and Monday. God's Blessings to you April.