36 weeks and 5.5 pounds!!

Ella is doing great and doing everything she should be doing at 36 weeks. She weighs 5 pounds 5.4 ounces! (Carter came home from the hospital at 5pounds 5 ounces).

We had a team meeting on Thursday, March 11th. The doctors, our primary day nurses Kim and Sandy, the OT, the lactation consultant, the Social Worker, a representative from the outpatient clinic and the discharge nurse were all there with us. They all agreed she is doing great. There are two things she needs to do before she can go home.
* MRI of her head-it is scheduled for Monday or Tuesday of this week. This is routine for any baby that was born before 30 weeks or has had a brain bleed
* car seat check- 1 1/2 hours in the car seat without any dips in her heartbeat or desats with her breathing
* sleep on her back without any bradycardia/too many desats (she started this today and is doing well)
* EAT BETTER! She continues to gain weight, which is good. She is nursing 2 times a day, but is too tired to nurse anymore. She needs to mature and build stamina so she can nurse more frequent. Once she does this, they will pull her feeding tube and introduce the bottle.

Ella's eyes improved to stage 0 zone 3. This is great news! They have resolved themselves and matured. We will follow-up in two weeks. The doctor even said this may be an outpatient appointment....so close to going home!!!!!

They require parents to take infant CPR, which Ryan and I completed today. There is a video that you can rent from the library that they recommend to anyone who wants to brush up on the CPR training...

We are so close to having our baby girl home!! I can't wait to be close to her all the time. I hate leaving her at the hospital. I am off of school on spring break this week, so we will get a lot of cuddle time in. I hope she makes great progress this week and we are one step closer to her being home.
Ryan started painting her room this afternoon. Her crib is in and is ready to be put together. We are slowly getting her room ready.... I love the pink walls!