First of all, thank you to everyone for the thoughts, prayers, gifts, and meals dropped off or sent to us. We are so thankful for so many people who care about Lola and us so much and have helped us in so many ways through these tricky last two weeks.
Lola is two weeks old today and doing much better than when I last updated. She moved out of the incubator and into the crib on Sunday, started treatments for thrush on Monday, which I think was part, if not all, of the reason for her bottling regression over the weekend, and started bottle feeding much better almost immediately. It has gone so well that today she got her NG tube out and started feeding ad lib. She needs to gain weight overnight and eat at least 264 millimeters in a 24 hour period. As of last night, she finally surpassed her birth weight and was 4 lbs, 13 oz.
She passed her CCHD/Echocardiogram test yesterday, is doing her car seat test now (fingers crossed!), and will have her hearing test later today. As long as all of these tests go well and she meets the feeding/weight gain requirements, we could go home tomorrow!!!!!! If not tomorrow, likely Saturday. Obviously, if she has any setbacks, that plan would change, but everyone is feeling confident and happy with the progress she has been making. Many of the nurses have commented that feeding is often the the last thing that keeps babies in the NICU, but once it clicks, they flourish and oftentimes do even better with it once they are home. We are looking forward to that happening, for certain.
I feel like she looks so much bigger today and her cheeks are starting to fill out. She has also been more alert in the last day or two and gets feisty when she is ready to eat. I’ve never been so happy to hear her cry and get mad when we can’t seem to feed her fast enough! All of these are good signs and it is incredible to finally know that we will soon be home.