Emily is still packing on the weight- she now weighs 2600 grams, or 5 pounds, 11 ounces.
She had a pretty good day yesterday and did well through the night. She was very congested yesterday and had to be suctioned, but she had a good session with occupational therapy and slept a lot. She has also started taking her feeds from her bottle again. The pictures today show Emily in her brand-new hat that her Mom made for her yesterday. (All of the nurses seemed quite impressed.) Jennifer held Emily on her knee while doing some knitting, and she seemed to enjoy that. Emily has also been getting much more expressive with her eyes and face. It’s hard to describe, but she’s furrowing her brow and moving her eyes in more suble ways. She’s also starting to look to her left more while she’s in the crib because people have started to approach her from that direction and she’s starting to get some stimulation there.
Although it looks like we’ll be spending Christmas with Emily in the hospital, I think that she would like it. To put it another way:
Brand-new pacifier – $2.00
Yarn for cute little hat – $5.00
Brand-new pulse-ox – $15.00
Cute little preemie outfit – $30.00
Christmas dress to have my picture taken with Santa – $40.00
Dr. Brown’s bottle with preemie nipples – $60.00
2007 Honda Odyssey- $29,400.00
5+ month stay in the NICU – $???,???.??
Spending the holidays with Mommy and Daddy – Priceless
While Emily was breast feeding yesterday, she got tired and grabbed Mom with both hands (a double-fisted drinker!), turned her head, put Mom’s nipple in her ear and fell asleep. Mom thought that this didn’t look too comfortable and tried to move her. This led to some of Emily’s loudest screams yet, accompanied by some oxygen desaturation alarms before she finally won the argument, put Mom’s nipple back in her ear and went to sleep. I’m not sure that this was the kind of drinking problem that the doctor was referring to when she said that Emily still needed to work on feeding before she could go home.
Tony
I love those pictures. And what a gorgeous hat! Good job, Mommy! Just so you know, in the event you are all still around at Christmas, I will be spending it with you too. Even though I know you’d certainly prefer to be at home, (and I am continuing to be hopeful that you are out of the hospital) I will be sooo happy to spend my Christmas with my favorite little lady. And I’ll rememeber if I ever want her to fall alseep, I’ll put a bottle in her ear! hehehe. She never fails to crack me up. I hope you had a good rest of the weekend.
Luv, Rebecca
I love a woman who knows what she wants…even if it’s a nipple in her ear!!! Too cute. She looks great in her new hat and I am totally impressed that you knitted it Jennifer!!
Susan
Jen,
Great job on the hat!!! It is absolutely adorable. I love the last picture where she is looking at you. Too cute!!
I love you
Julie
Hi Tony, Jennifer, and Emily,
That was a great post and we really enjoyed it. I’m happy to hear you sounding so upbeat, and I loved the Mastercard price list. I do think there’s at least one number missing in the NICU stay cost estimate; one of these days I’ll be bored enough and have sufficient free time to add up the CIGNA charges for Hallie and I’m pretty sure that, before the insurance discount, they’ll amount to over a million.
In any event, I wish you all a peaceful end of the weekend and a stellar beginning of the week. As always, you are in our thoughts and prayers and we are all pulling for Emily.
Abby, Sharon, and Hallie
PS. We love the hat, and it’s nice to see Emily fitting into that adorable Little Me cow suit; Hallie had one just like it. She outgrew the hat before the outfit, an I am sure Miss Emily did the same thing.