Now that Claire has proven herself to be medically stable our days start and end pretty much the same. I wake up to pump, then get ready for the day, usually with the assistance of sweet little Owen, always the early morning riser. Then it's off to the hospital for Claire's 8 am cares. After scrubbing in I head back to room 6 to see whether she is waking up yet. Then it's time to take a temperature and change her diaper. Claire is pretty consistent in this area, she almost always waits for a clean diaper to poop in (why not???). At this point her nurse does a quick assessment then it's time to start breastfeeding. This is the time when all bets are off... No one but Claire knows how this next bit will go.
And then it starts all over again.
There are so many milestones that newborns reach, each of them fully amazing to us as parents but NICU milestones are different. Not needing assistance breathing or oxygen was (thankfully) a quick one for Claire, maintaining her temp and graduating to a crib came soon after. Moving from the high acuity room 1 to a feeder/grower room was definatly reasurring. The absence of an IV when we came in one morning was a great relief and not needing her glowing 'bili' blanket made life much easier (although she did lose the cute glow worm effect). Increasing her feeds, milliliter by milliliter is an ongoing one, as is learning the ropes of breast and bottle feeding. One of the final milestones we are looking forward to before her discharge from the NICU is the lack of need for her NG tube.
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