Eating, Sleeping, and Being Beautiful

We have had an exciting day!  Frances is doing incredibly well and I was able to spend the entire day loving on her.  I got to dress her up this morning....it sure was tough deciding which cute outfit to put her in.  We have to be the fashion diva in the NICU of course (right Ashley?)! 



First Family Picture!



Frances started on her bottle feeds last night and tolerated them extremely well.  The goal is for her to take 30-40 cc's every 3-4 hours and for her to eat within about a 30 minute time period.  I finally got to feed her this after and she was exhausted and did not do so hot taking that bottle, but we got another good one in before bedtime tonight.  Being an occupational therapist, I can give tips and pointers to parents about newborn feeding in my sleep.  Well, being on this side of the feeding and feeling frustrated when I couldn't get her to eat really gave me a different perspective!  The nurses in the NICU have all been so wonderful, supportive, and helpful with everything. 

I finally let Will hold her:)

Frances has done great with her body temperature.  She came off the warmer last night and has been in a crib for over 24 hours now without dropping her temp.  This is one of the "coming home" criteria.  Her bilirubin is slightly elevated so they went ahead and put her under the lights for tonight, but hopefully she will be done with that tomorrow. 

Frances had her neurodevelopmental exam today with the occupational therapist so I had a lot of fun getting in on that action!  Frances is quite the overacheiver, and the OT was extremely pleased with her muscle tone, reflexes, responding to sound, and visual focusing. 



Good night everyone!



Tomorrow I hope to begin the day with a good feeding and start to get used to her feeding schedule.  Please continue to pray for her feedings, keeping her body temperature up, and those bilirubin levels to go down!