She's all grown up!

Anna has officially graduated to a big girl bed! No more isolette, she is such a big girl now! So now she gets to finally wear clothes every day and get bundled up into a baby burrito to keep warm. They are trying to 'normalize' her for life outside of the NICU. This will help us all transition to life at home, which is nothing like it has been in the hospital the last few months.

Anna also finished 2 full bottles today on her own! The nurse said that she finishes them in about 15 minutes which shows that she has good coordination and does not have any visible issues at this point so it will only be a matter of a short time before she takes all of her feeds by mouth. She said sometimes they will take all of their feeds and then have to retract back to the tube feeding to get a break but that doesn't last too long. So the night nurse is also going to try her on an "on demand" feed as well tonight and see how she does (instead of feeding her on the hospitals' schedule). This is also more like how it would be at home.

In terms of when Anna would 'realistically' be home, the nurse stated that maybe even as early as next weekend. Now, we're not going to get our hopes by any means or think that she in fact will be home next weekend, but realistically in our minds maybe in another 1.5-2 weeks she should be home at the rate she is going now. She is just such a little champion and has really sailed through the last 9 weeks in the NICU.

So she is now 2150 grams on the dot, which is 4lbs 11 oz, so she will definitely be over the 5lb mark once she is released home. She is also on full formula feeds now which she has been tolerating quite well and her feeds I believe are 44 or 45 mls still.

There's just a few odds and ends we have to take care of before she comes home; shave the dog (haha), get some newborn sleepers (we never ended up getting too many, thinking that she would be full term and they would be too small -- HA) and we have to double-check our car seat because we are not sure if the weight requirement is on par with Anna's weight. The nurse mentioned to be on alert because they will just call us one day and tell us to bring the car seat in for the final test that she has to pass, and then the day after she would be home. So we have to start preparing.

So exciting!! Sounds like she will definitely be home before two weeks are up!! :) We are on cloud nine right now!!

Here she is tonight after her bath and fully dressed in her first little outfit:



Here she is getting woken up to eat, she lets out quite the cry:



Marta & Arthur