Le Huitième Jour

Day 8 and some good progress to report.

Ezri was granted a day of reprieve from the Big Blue Light thanks to her lowered bilirubin levels. Because of this, she was allowed to wear her own clothes - except that her cautious parents had decided not to bring any of her own clothes, thinking that she would still require the Light today. Luckily - sort of - the NICU keeps a stash of clothes on hand that had been donated so she didn't have to go naked. She did however have to spend the day in a somewhat hideous pink garb, complete with stains from some other NICU baby who was also doomed to wear it. I don't blame them though - I would vomit too if I had to spend any amount of time in such attire. By the end of the day though, Miss Ezri was decked out in one of her very own, brand new, supercute outfits and the hideous pink garb was banished to the soiled linens bin for the next poor baby whose parents don't bring them clothes to wear.

Other good news - the doctor wrote orders today for Ezri to start practice breastfeeding. We gave our first trial run at her noon feeding with FANTASTIC results. She latched right on and started sucking away - AND SWALLOWING! This is a HUGE step for a premie since one of the main challenges of having a baby before 34 weeks is that they don't have the whole suck-swallow-breath thing down. Ezri managed to hang on - quite aggressively - for a good 3 to 4 minutes. The lactation consultant at first was just impressed that Ezri had stuck her tongue out and showed some interest in the breast. She was shocked and delighted when Ezri actually latched on and downright giddy to see that she was swallowing. Granted, they had me pump prior to all of this so she was only getting hindmilk (the stuff that comes after regular breastmilk is expressed - it is very high in fats and other things that are very good for babies). At any rate, this is a good indication that our girl is probably ready to start nipple feeding so hopefully tomorrow they will be attempting one of her feeds through a bottle. We will continue with Breastfeeding 101 once a day to get her used to it before she comes home.

Finally, Grandma and Pop-Pop - my mom and dad - along with our longtime family friends Kriss and Mike came up for a visit this evening. Everyone got a chance to hold Ezri, which she thoroughly enjoyed and was very relaxed by. We managed to snap a few shows with Grandma Lynn before our camera crapped out on us. We did sneak in a cell phone to get a few photos with Pop-Pop, but you'll have to wait until Grandma emails them to me before they'll find a place on the blog.

Overall, eight was truly a great day for us. Fingers crossed for more good news tomorrow!