3 pound turkey

Willa reached 3 pounds today!  She has been doing alot of growing lately.  She gained a pound in 16 days.  That is right at an ounce per day.  The nurses tell me she really makes the nurse practitioners and doctors use their knowledge to come up with just the right "formula" for her feeds.  The nurses have a very specific recipe to follow when mixing up her food.  They reassure me they will have it much simpler by the time she goes home :)
Willa was introduced to her first nipple feed on Thanksgiving day.  She was such a trooper and took over half of it!  She was pretty wore out and the rest of the feeding was done through her NG tube.  Today she took her whole feeding from the bottle!  She will be fed one to two bottles per day to start out with until she gets the stamina to work her way up to all feeds from a bottle.  She is not able to breastfeed at this point because she requires the special "formula" to give her the calories she needs to grow. 
She is slowly being weaned off her oxygen.  She is down to 1 liter and usually around 25% oxygen. 
Nothing much else has changed.  She just continues to grow and get stronger which is what she needs to do.  She is a baby of many expressions.  The nurses say she has a very concerned look on her face.  She has started to smile quite a bit when she is awake.
As promised, here are some pictures from the week -

practicing her sucking

Willa's first try with nipple feeds

Our first Thanksgiving together



Thankful

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  Willa is such a blessing and a true miracle for us.  While we have had a rough road the past three months, Willa has shown how strong she is and given us the strength to get through it all.  
This morning Mitch and I were looking through pictures we have taken on our phones during Willa's NICU stay.  It is very scary to look back at those pictures during the first month of her life.  She is very fraile and her skin has a grey tone to it.  Now she looks so healthy and has a beautiful pink complexion about her.  Here she is - 

Today we enjoyed a Thanksgiving meal in Wichita at Stroud's, a family style dining restaurant, with Mitch's mom, dad, brother, and my sister Katrina.  We then went to the hospital to see Willa.  Our little turkey is weighing in at 2 lbs 13.7 oz.  Today was a big day for her.  She was able to try out a bottle for the first time today.  She is up to 27 ml's for her feeds.  She took over half of it from the bottle!  The nurse was very impressed with her first try at taking a bottle.  Usually the bottle feeding is one of the hardest feats for a preemie to overcome before they are able to go home.  I'm hoping today is a sign that Willa will be able to figure this out quickly.  
I will have more pictures to share later this weekend.  Happy holidays!

Growing right along

Today is day 49 of Willa's stay in the NICU and actually it is going by quickly.  I'm so proud of her and the progress she has made lately.  Her feeding tube has been moved to her nose so that she can now start trying to take feeds from a nipple.  This hasn't been introduced yet since she is still pretty small.  The nurses said she is about 500 grams (a little over a pound) under what a baby of her gestation should weigh.  She is now 15 3/4 inches long and up to 2 lbs 11 oz!  She has been gaining around an ounce a day since she hit the 2 lb mark.  Willa's bradys and desats have been very few lately which is great.  Her red blood cell count was low with the last lab that was done.  The lab also shows that her body is trying to reproduce those red blood cells.  They are going to let her try to get those counts up on her own before they give her any extra help.   If she can get her red blood cell count up, it is likely that she can get completely weaned off the nasal cannula to where she is completely breathing on her own.  She had a follow up exam on her eyes to check for ROP - an eye disease that can develop after being on oxygen for extended periods of time.  There were no signs of any problems with her eyes and the doctor was impressed with that!  Here are some new photos of her.

A new sign the nurses made for her.  She is wearing the little outfit my cousins Trevor, Lela and Haddie Arnoldy got for her.  It's so cute!

Sleeping beauty :)

A lot of catching up to do...

So much has happened with Willa in the last week!  First - she reached the 2 pound mark on Wednesday the 9th!  To document the occasion, the nurses took another photo of her.  Miss Willa, we need to work on the smile.  I think she will get a good laugh out of this picture later in life :)

We forgave her for not smiling in this picture.  She saved her smiles for Thursday.  We met 2 photographers, a PR person from the hospital and a freelance writer at the hospital on Thursday to get our story and take some pictures of us.  Willa did great with everything.  She gave the photographers some big grins :)  I'll be sure to put some of those pictures up when we get them.  I think there will be a story on us in a magazine the hospital puts out.  I'm not sure what else they plan to do with the photos.  After all that was over, Mitch held her and she was worn out.

Friday night we celebrated Willa's 2 pound milestone by having friends over for a "pounder party".  It was fun to have everyone over! 

Willa is now up to 2 lbs 3 oz.  She has moved to a new bed; her "big girl bed" Mitch says :)  It is still an isolette, but with fewer bells and whistles and it doesn't have the humidity regulator.  She is now cleared to wear clothes!  Here are some more pictures from the weekend.

The new bed

Photo by Amy Latta :)

Mitch, MJ (Mitch's mom) and Willa in clothes!

Kisses to Willa from all you

who have asked me to give

them to her for you!

Halloween is over = Goodbye to the CPAP monster

You have to agree...it is a scary looking apparatuce!  Thursday Willa said no more CPAP!  I'm a big girl; give me the nasal cannula full-time.  So that is what they did!  She has been doing very well with the nasal cannula since.

While we are mentioning Halloween, I have to share a picture of what the nurses did for Willa.

If you can't read it, it says "Dear Docs, Can I please have some candy to help me grow a bit? Thanks, Willa"  Thought it was too cute!  The nurses make these scrapbook like pages when babies hit a milestone or when they get a good picture of the baby when the parents aren't around.  The nurses are so great!

I think the Docs did give Willa candy.  Today she is 1 lb 13 oz!  Her feeds are now up to 17 ml's every 3 hours.  Her latest brain scan came back negative.  I was visiting with one of her doctors yesterday and he said she was doing exceptional!  What a wonderful thing to hear!  We had public relations come talk to us today and they would like us to share our story for advertising purposes for the NICU and the maternal fetal medicine specialist I went to during the pregnancy.  We will see what that will all entail.
Here is Willa snoozing away yesterday :)  Happy one month birthday Willa!