Please come home for Christmas, If not for Christmas by New Years night

Willa is 2 months old as of yesterday.  During our visit with her, we asked her nurse Meagan - one of our favorite nurses :) - when she thought Willa would be able to come home.  Meagan is optimistic that Willa may be able to come home by Christmas.  However, just a few days before that another nurse made the comment that Willa would not be home with us for Christmas.  I'm sure they don't want to get our hopes up.  But it is too late...they are already up.  Keep the prayers going that she is able to come home with us!

Many people have asked what weight she has to be before she goes home.  Weight has litle to do with when she goes home.  There is not magic number.  In order for her to come come she must do the following:

-maintain her body temperature in an open crib (Willa is still in an isolette)
-take all her feeds from a bottle (Willa is getting 1 or 2 of her 8 feeds a day from a bottle)
-go 5 days without any bradycardia or apnea
-pass the carseat test - sit in her carseat for a hour and a half without any bradycardia or apnea

Willa has been off and on with the bottle feeds.  One day she will take the whole bottle and the next, not even half.  The nurses found out she has such a strong suck she was collapsing the nipple of the bottle.  They switched her up to a higher flow nipple and she has done better with that. 

Today is day 63 of Willa's NICU stay.  She is 3 lbs 9.2 oz.  Yesterday the orders came in for Willa and she was taken off her nasal cannula.  This is a big step for her.  She did great all day being off the oxygen, even through her bottle feed.  That evening she got her first dose of her 2 month vaccinations.  The nurse said she may need her oxygen again after her shots and sure enough she did.  She got the second dose of her vaccines today and hopefully she will be feeling better by the end of the week and able to come back off the cannula.  Here are some pictures of her without cannula.  She is getting some pretty chubby cheeks!  

The classic Willa look

I ask that eveyone say an extra prayer for Willa's new NICU neighbor and her family.  The baby was born on Friday and has some medical problems.  The mom is having a very hard time dealing with it all.  I don't think she has been in to see her baby since the day she was born.  There is not much privacy in the NICU so even though I try to mind my own business, sometime you just can't help but overhear the nurses.  From what I've heard, the baby has some problems with her brain and has an abnormally large head.  It doesn't sound like there is much hope for the baby to live long.  Seeing that really makes you thankful for what you have.  It's true what they say; someone always has it worse than you.  My heart goes out to this mom.