Willa is completely off oxygen and caffeine and has been doing great without both. Her one and only hold up to going home is eating. Willa got her first bottle on Thanksgiving. She started out being able to nipple (taking a bottle) one time per day. She is now up to being able to nipple all 8 times per day. However, she rarely finishes her bottles. She has to take 52 ml's (just a tad shy of 2 ounces) in 30 minutes. She is only allowed 30 minutes to take her feed because she burns more calories than she takes in if she goes longer than the 30 minutes. What she does not take orally is then gavaged down the NG tube (tube in her nose). Since we cannot do gavaged feeds at home, she must master taking everything orally.
Willa has a speech therapist that works with her once a day during a feeding and she is awesome. I have learned so much about how to tell what Willa is telling me with her facial expressions, her little grunts, her eye blinks, and how her jaw feels.
Willa has developed some pretty bad reflux which is not helping her eating. She has figured out that if she eats, it's going to come back up later and not feel good. So I don't blame her for not wanting to eat. Today she was prescribed some medication to help with the reflux. I'm praying this helps and she will feel like eating soon.
It has become harder and harder to stay away from her lately. Between Mitch and me we are up to see her once a day now for several hours. Willa has also had some more visitors in the last couple weeks - Uncle Joe and Great Grandma Dolly both got to hold Willa for the first time.
Willa and her favorite (and only) uncle
who got her a BB gun for Christmas
proud Great Grandma Dolly
3 month old little miss Willa
Thanks cousin Macy for the outfit!
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