What a sweet face

Not that we're partial or anything...but what a sweet face! Today Emmy came off the Bili lights so the little velcro tabs that held on her "sunglasses" while she was under the lights are gone, too! Now you can see all of her face.

Dr. Brawley said that he hopes to take out her PICC line soon, and then she will be free from everything but the little external monitors. Yay!

They doubled her feedings again today to 20 ccs. She'd had her first "big" feeding at Noon, so at 3 p.m. when we went in to feed her, she wasn't quite as ravenous as she has been and it was hard to get her to wake up and eat. We think her belly was still pretty full. Not surprisingly, she did manage to finish most of it finally.

A couple more photos are up in Picasa, but I had to finish with one of "Big Sister" Rags. Charles put together the bouncer today while we were organizing things in the nursery, and Rags promptly climbed up and went to sleep. Here she is posing for the camera.

Look what's missing!

Emmy's feeding tube! They took it out this morning and they have doubled her feedings to 10 ccs (about 2 teaspoons). Way to go!

We had a good visit with her this afternoon. After she ate her "snack" we both got to "kangaroo" with her, which means put her on our chests skin to skin. It's good for newborns, but especially for preemies as they're learning to regulate their body temperature. It also helps Mom's hormones for milk production. It was wonderful and I'm not sure I've ever seen Charles look so happy.

Here's one more photo of Emmy taking her bottle. It only takes her about a minute to suck it down. What a good eater!

Eating from a bottle!

We were thrilled to find out yesterday from Emmy's day nurse, Carla, and Dr. Brawley that they had decided to let her try her 3 p.m. feeding from a bottle and she did GREAT! Carla said they would probably do a bottle feeding every 12 hours, but when we called to check on her last night, her night nurse had given her the 9 p.m. feeding on it, and after talking to Kim, today's nurse, it sounds like she's had most every feeding since then from a bottle because she's handling the nipple so well. We are absolutely thrilled! Of course, we should have known with her genes she'd be a good little eater.

I just called to check on her and they increased her feedings after rounds this morning from 3 to 5 ccs every 3 hours. She handled the increase well by bottle at noon, so they are going to let us feed her at 3:00. I can't wait!

She is still under the bili light for her jaundice. We thought they might be able to take the 2nd light off today (she was under two lights for a couple of days, but she's down to one), but she's still has to be under them. That's okay, but we'll be glad when she's done because then we can hold her more.

Really, she is just doing so well. Thank you Dr. Larson for making the best call for her health last week! We are so blessed to have such a healthy baby, especially for all she endured to get here.