Kisses from daddy

When I first arrived today, this is the pose she was in! Can she be any more precious in this picture? I take one look at her and I just forget about everything else but her.

Today was filled with alot of good things and only one not so good thing. I would rather get the not so good things out first so that when I finish typing, I am happy and smiling and can go to sleep not panicking.

Today I watched my little girl turn from a cute pink tone to a pale white tone in a matter of seconds. She kept having her oxygen level drop...and I mean REALLY drop, down into the single digits. Jen the nurse started off trying to tickle her feet because that is the most sensitive part of their body to try and wake her up a little more. When that didn't work, she had to pick her up and hold her upright. I was amazed how quickly her color would fade and then reappear like someone was switching a light switch off and on. She did that twice and it scared the crap out of me! The doctors may think that she might be in need of a blood transfusion. They draw her blood every morning and her little tiny body cannot keep up and make the blood back in time. I read about it in my preemie book that I turn to for EVERY thing and apparently it is very common in preemies! They use O negative blood. I was a little scared at first, but after reading and understanding why they need to do it, I am okay with it when and if it needs to happen. It's just such a scary word.....blood transfusion, but an educated mom is a good mom and I am comfortable with it if and when it happens.

For the good happy news. They are moving right along with increasing her feedings and was bumped up to 4 cc's per hour!! She is expected to gain 30 grams a day, and today she did just that and is up to 2 lbs 14 oz! Tomorrow might be the big day we hit 3 LBS! She has now dropped off of the "charts" and is not even charting within the weight limits for a 33 week old baby. She was hanging strong in the 3 percentile for the past few weeks. So even though she is doing great growing and we are increasing her food, she is still tiny tiny.

Other big exciting news as a mom, she completely lost her belly button. And for the final big news.....she pooped all by her SELF! I was sitting there and thinking...hmmm...she is a little fussy. I should check her diaper....and whoa.....there it was! I even saved it until the nurse got back from lunch because I new she would want to look at it and share in my excitement. I guess they can really tell alot from poopies, but I think that is one thing I will leave to the nurses and not really look into more!

We kangarooed today and it was heaven. When her alarms were going off all day, I was really hesitant to hold her because I just didn't want her to be unstable or overstimulate her. But Jen insisted and thank goodness I did. The entire 2 hours, she didn't say a peep, didn't move an inch, and only had 2 very short alarms. She just slept and was super cozy. Afterwards, dad and I got to give her a little bath and guess what...she pooped again! We had just got done washing her and I guess she decided she wanted to make us do it all over again. Jen said it was really time to start putting clothes on her, so we pulled out one of her tiny little preemie outfits and laughed at how big it was on her. It was almost a safety hazard because it was so big and baggy, we even had to roll up the sleeves! You look at preemie clothes and you think they are so tiny...and then you put them on that little tiny body of hers and you really realize how tiny she is! But she is growing and making mommy and daddy proud.