Bayley wearing a bib for the first time yawning. lol

Big girl likes to EAT!!!

Today was pretty good...It started with a bang but that is a different story. Bayley is up to 3 lb 15.2 oz. She had a good bottle day and has had no apnea in 48 hours. She is taking 50 ml at each feeding and is doing it in less than 30 min so she is doing great at that. Today hasnt been a good tummy day for Bayley. It has just been a reminder that although she is doing fantastic and we are so thrilled for that, she is still underdeveloped and has a long way to go. We watched the car seat safety video today. We left our car seat at the hospital and they are going to do a car seat test on Bayley tonight to make sure that she can ride 30 min in the car seat without having apnea. She had her head ultrasound done today and it has to be negative before we can go home but hopefully it will be. Her temperature is always hot so I dont that that will keep us from going home. We have to have some "education" done which Im assuming is on caring for a premie and we have to have a meeting with one of the doctors where they will go over everything that they have had to do to Bayley and her medications that she has been given. It is very exciting to get to bring Bayley home but it is also scarey too. I was nervous bringing Syd home at 7 lb 11 oz and now we are bringing home Bayley at hopefully 4 lb. I keep trying to get a nurse to come live with us. We have been so fortunate to have such great nurses. Some of our favorites have been Christy, Emily, Susie, and Amanda. We have only had one day out of 4 weeks where I just didnt think Bayley got good care...that is awesome if you think about it. Anyway, Just pray that Bayley gets to come home healthy. More tomorrow...

These are from Thursday.

These are from Friday

She doesnt cry often...but here ya go! lol

Ok So I Missed blogging thursday. We are trying to get things somewhat ready for Bayley to come home. Everything is a wreck so i have had to spend less time blogging and more time sorting junk out. On Thursday Bayley gained to 3 lb 11.6 oz. She did a little better on bottles today but still doesnt have it completely yet. Since she is in a crib we basically held her all day! lol It is soooo much better than just having to look at her in her bubble. Nothing really exciting went on other than her weight gain.

Today, Friday she had gained to 3 lb 13 oz. Dr. Metts came and did her 2nd eye exam. He said her eyes are underdeveloped but they expected that... she has to follow up with him in 3 weeks. I got told to bring in her "going home outfit". She has to pass a carseat tolerance test to make sure she can ride in her carseat for 30 min w/o having apnea. I got to take her to a parenting room today which was really fun. It is a lil living room like setting with a tv. they unhook bayley from the monitors so we can get used to watching for her breathing etc. She Pee'd on me for the 1st time today!!! THe 1st of many of sure. She was so cute i couldnt get mad at her lol. She will have her 2nd head ultrasound tomorrow...pray that goes ok. We watched a CPR video today and tomorrow we have to watch the carseat video. We have a lot of lil stuff to do before she can go home. I cant think of anything else too exciting...I will try to definitely post tomorrow so look for news on going home or not going home...

THIS PICTURE SAYS IT ALL!!!! TODAY WAS ALL SMILES!!!
SYDNEY EVEN THOUGHT TODAY WAS A PRETTY GOOD DAY! LOL

THIS WAS THE VERY FIRST TIME SYDNEY GOT TO HOLD BAYLEY.

SISTERS!!!

SYDNEY GOT SOME BAYLEY LOVE!!!

SYDNEY CHANGING DIAPER FOR THE 1ST TIME!!! IT WAS A NASTY DIRTY ONE TOO!!!

SYDNEY GIVING BAYLEY A BOTTLE FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!

Well as you can see today was a pretty good day. We started it early with Sydneys 8:30 am dentist appt. WOW That is early for us late birds. After the dentist we returned some unneeded maternity clotes. lol Then after lunch we headed to the hospital to see our baby. It is official...BAYLEY IS A FATTY!!! She gained to 3 lb 11 oz. Everyone is so shocked that she has packed the weight on so fast. The nurses all say that she isnt acting like a 29 week baby. It was about 4 before we heard the magic words...CRIB & GOING HOME!!! Yup...you read that right. Our lil fatty got put in a crib late this afternoon and that starts the countdown to home. Our first "Possible" Going home date is SUNDAY!!! She has been getting 30 ml per feeding and they moved her up to 40 ml today... that is a huge jump. Bayley has to drink 40 ml every 4 hours in a 30 minute time frame with no apnea. She also has to mantain her temperature in her crib. There is something else she has to do but I cant remember what in the world it is but I will find out tomorrow. lol She has to do those things for 3 days in a row. If she fails any of it the countdown starts over. Our countdown started at 5pm.. SHE FAILED HER FIRST BOTTLE lol so this may not be quite so simple. lol One of the nurses said that it is usually somewhere in a 7 day time frame around the original target date so I guess you could say we should go home sometime next week as long as we have no major setbacks. Our other big news as you could see was that since Bayley got to get in a crib today that means that Sydney finally gets to hold her!!!! She was so happy. You can see from the pictures that she totally loved her time with Bayley. It was so sweet to watch them get to know each other. Sydney did great with Bayley & she is going to be so much help with her. Bayley is very lucky to have Sydney as her big sister. Keep your fingers crossed and the prayers going up that Bayley will remain healthy & that we can bring her home and she will continue to grow & have a wonderful life!!!

PS... just in case you wondered... we have gotten NOTHING done in the house lol. We are sooo not prepared...but thank goodness 4 lb babies dont know much about organization or decorating lol Needless to say it is 1 am and we just finished cleaning out a closet. lol Operation Prepare for Bayley is Underway!!!!

Today was an ok day. We didnt get to go to the hospital until 3 because they got the triplets that they have been expecting. The babies are doing good so far. Bayley is up to 3 lb 9.2 oz. She is doing great. She is on all bottles and they increased her milk to 30 ml. She has to get up to 40 ml before she can go home but they dont think that will take long. They are still acting like we may go home at the end of next week. I havent felt great tonight. My blood pressure is back up for some reason. I cant wait to get Bayley home so that maybe we can just relax. More tomorrow.

My baby shower was so pretty! Becky, Katie, Kim etc all worked too hard on it but I loved it so much!

These four are from Monday.

This is the first time Brian has gotten to give Bayley a bottle.

Sorry I missed updating yesterday. Things have been busy as you can guess. Bayley is doing fantastic. Sunday she had gained to 3 lb 6.8 oz. For the very first time one of our nurses talked to me about possibly going home. She told me that she thinks it is very possible for us to be home in 2 weeks ( 3 at the most) It all depends on any setbacks that Bayley might have and if she continues to progress the way she has this week. My baby shower for Bayley was Yesterday too. It was so pretty & fun. We were very overwhelmed with all of the beautiful things that we got. Now we just have to come up with a place to put them and keep fattening her up and get her home so she can use them.

Today was good too. Bayley had gained to 3 lb 7.8 oz. She is changing so much. They have increaed her milk to 29 ml per serving and they moved her to all bottle and 1 breastfeedng a day. She no longer has to be OG fed!!! we are excited. It is just one more step closer to the door. I got to feed her a bottle today at 2...and they never made me put her back in the "bubble". I got to hold her until 4:45 and then i just shared with brian and he held her. I was in HEAVEN!!! Keep your fingers crossed and hopefully we will be home in 1 week 6 days or LESS!!!! More tomorrow!

This is a pretty good pic of her tube feeding. They just get it started and then hold it and let graity pull it into her tummy.

They have Bayley on a pretty big incline. They think that some of her tummy issues could be from reflux which elevating her head could help.

There is nothing like changing a diaper with your baby in a bubble.

Today was just part of the typical rollercoaster. It started out really good. Our lil fatty GAINED AGAIN!!! She is up to 3 lb 5 oz. We are just sooo excited and a lil shocked. She is doing fantastic on weight. They have increased the fortifier to the maximum of 4 additional calories per serving. That is definitely part of what is causing her rapid weight gain. We are just so glad that it is working and working so quickly. They increaed her iron today. They increased her feedings to 27 ml. They are doing 3 bottles a day now. Our breastfeeding session today went "ok" typical of a 29 weeker. She spit up twice during the day today & had a large about of residual at the 5pm feeding (5.5ml) I called after her 8pm feeding and luckily she didnt have any residual. Her tummy is still soft and she has good bowel sounds still. She had 3 dirty diapers so things are definitely still working. This tummy stuff is just hard to understand because one minute everything is good and the next it is pukeville! Bayley gagged today over her feeding tube. I will be so glad when that is over and she wont need to be tubed. As you can see above they have raised the head of her bed a lot. This is to see if any part of her tummy issues are reflux that would help it. I am a lil nervous about tomorrow. I am going to early church at Roebuck Parkway and then going to see Bayley from 10-12:30 or 1. Tomorrow is my shower at church and I am getting more and more anxious about not being with her tomorrow afternoon. Brian is going to go stay with her for a few hours but I still wanna be with her myself. Sydney & Brian painted Bayley's room today. It is really cute. Anyway more tomorrow.

Lacy Sydney & Bayley together for the 1st time!

Bayley & Sydney holding hands for the very first time!!!

Our very big girl!!

Today was a pretty good day! I started today by going to get Syd at camp!!!! She says this year was the best year ever and she had a great time. We got to the hospital & Sydney was very excited to see Bayley. She could really tell that she has grown. We cheated today and I let Sydney touch Bayley for the very 1st time. They held hands and then Sydney even held her for just a quick second. She will get to love on her more as time goes on but Sydney was thrilled to get just that much Bayley love. Bayley gained again! She is up to 3 lb 3 oz!!! We are so excited for her. She is still having residual but it wasnt quite as bad today. She only acted like her tummy hurt a few times today & seemed so much calmer than the last two days...Sydney says it is because her Sissy is back!! Bayley is up to 27 ml of milk per feeding. They are moving her up to 3 bottles a day. Bayley attempted to breastfeed for the 1st time today. She did really good for only a 32 weeker. She had much fewer apnea spells while taking her bottle today. She also took her bottle in only 10 minutes instead of 30. They took her oxygen monitor off today and said that she no longer needs it. YAY. Everything we heard/saw today was positive. We even had our first mini talk about GOING HOME!!!! She has a lot of milestones to make but I think it is possible to be home by mid July if she keeps things up the way today went. Keep your fingers crossed and keep the prayers going up!!! More tomorrow.

Today was ok and not so ok. Bayley stayed the same in weight 3 lb 1.2 oz. When I called at 5am the nurse said that Dr. Mena had agreed for Bayley to have an additional bottle last night to give her more practice. She took the bottle down in 30 minutes and the nurse rated her as "fair". She took her bottle at 2pm today and she did a little better on it. She finished it in 25 minutes and only set the alarms off a couple of times. Amanda, her nurse, only had to hold her chin some but not all the time. Bayley burped 3 different times for Amanda which was the first time they have ever gotten her to burp. After her 2pm bottle I got to hold her for about 30 minutes. She was so sweet & stayed awake and looked at me and we talked for the whole 30 minutes. After our cuddle time she never seemed comfortable again. She dirtied a BIG diaper... lol Poop is good! I changed her but she never seemed to settle down. She basically stayed awake until almost 5 and bowed her back a lot and acted like her tummy was hurting. She isnt a crying baby at all and hardly ever fusses so Amanda was as baffled as me over why she was so fussy. Before her 5pm feeding amanda checked for residual and she had a lot 5ml but she had good bowel sounds and her tummy felt ok to Amanda. Her 5pm feeding was with the feeding tube and it went fine. We left a few minutes early tonight 5:30 so that we could go to camp for skit night and see Sydney. I called Amanda before she left at 7 and she sad that she told Dr. DiCarlo about Bayley being so fussy and the residual. He examined Bayley hisself and he agreed she was ok but did say that he was going to recheck her tonight after her 8 and 11pm feedings to see if there was any change. Hopefully it was just a tummy ache or a lil gas and not a sign of anything bigger. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better tummy day for Bayley. Dr. DiCarlo had planned to up her feedings to 26ml tonight but we will see tomorrow if he went ahead with those plans after the tummy ache. Camp tonight was fun. It was sooo good seeing Sydney. She looked great. She seemed like she was having a great time! Their skit was funny. Sydney comes home TOMORROW & I cant wait!!!!! She drives me nuts 1/2 the time but I love every minute of it. More tomorrow.

Today was a better than yesterday. Bayley gained 2 ounces and is up to 3 lb 1 oz. We are very excited about this but the real test will be in 48 hours when we see if she is going to keep the weight on or if she will lose again. Dr. Mena was concerned because she did so bad on the bottle yesterday so he had Donna, our nurse, give Bayley her bottle this morning so I didnt get to see it. Donna said that she drank all of it with some help (holding her chin up so she would remember to suck and pulling the bottle out when she didnt breathe) It took her the whole 30 minutes to take the bottle. She seemed to have a tummy ache today. She spit up 3 different times today. She is still on 23 ml and will stay there until she gains more weight. An Occupational Therapist came by today and evaluated her on neurological development. The therapist said that she is atleast on a 29 week level maybe even a lil more. She passed so that is good! I forgot to mention it yesterday but she lost her cord. That is exciting since Sydney kept hers until she was 2 months old. They may move Bayley to two bottles a day tomorrow. They really want her to improve on suck swallow and breathe and Dr. Mena said it will take practice to improve. Sydney called again tonight. She seemed really good. It sounds like she is having a great time. She will be home Friday and I cant wait!! It is wayyyy too quiet at home...I need some noise back in my life lol. More tomorrow.

Little Miss Bright Eyes...FAKING IT!!!!

Today was "ehhh." First Bayley got moved to a side wall bed. After I got over my heartattack from thinking my baby was back on a CPAP... I got pretty excited because I thought she was finally not considered one of the 8 sickest babies...Well that didnt last long lol. Her nurse finally broke it to me that the only reason she moved was because they got another set of twins in and the needed her spot to keep the twins together...and that was the only reason for her move. It wasnt a "promotion move". Her nurse did say she isnt classified as Critical anymore she is just Serious which is something so we will take it. Her weight stayed the same...still 1330 grams which is 2 lb 15 oz. Dr. DiCarlo said that Bayley has had an increase in residual since startng the Fortifier. He said that they were going to continue it for now but that some babies just couldnt tolerate the fortifier...so we will have to wait and see if she can. Dr. DiCarlo also said that they started her on Feosol which is an iron suppliment because her hemoglobin dropped. He said that they wanted to treat it aggressively in order to hopefully keep her from having to have a blood transfusion. She got her 2nd bottle today....She failed...BIG TIME! They give them 30 minutes to drink the bottle...it was 23 ml. During the 30 minutes her heart and oxygen monitors went off several times and after the 30 minutes she had only drank 4 of the 23 ml. They had to give her the remaining 19 ml through her feeding tube. We will continue to try 1 bottle a day until she gets better at suck, swallow & breathe. Christy, our nurse that we love, told me that they were going to keep her at 23 ml today. Bayley was tired today and slept most all day. I think she was bored with me and wants her Sissy to come home. Brian held Bayley today and she looked around a lil but mainly slept. I actually am gonna miss my old 2 neighbors...Mario & Moyia. Mario is a 25 weeker and Moyia is a 24 weeker. They both weigh a lil over 1 lb. They are fighters and are doing pretty good considering. I was scared to even look at them to start with but they seem to be improving slowly every day. Keep them in your prayers. Sydney called again tonight. She is having a good time. I miss her so much. I dont think I ever realized how much I talk to her and how nice it is to have her around. The nurses continue to ask about her non stop. They miss her too lol. Me & Bayley cant wait to get Sissy back and have her asleep in the chair beside me during the day lol. More tomorrow.