Kayla day 61 (37 weeks)

Kayla 37 weeks gestation, two months old today, (happy birthday) and day 80 of days at the hospital. My hope was that I would have Kayla home before her 2 month birthday, but Kayla has other plans and has decided to stay a little longer. My frustration from last night has gotten better, yet I still struggle and want to talk to the doctors for some clarification. I didn't get a call this morning because we may be getting some new little neighbors in the NICU, I think the mom is 29 weeks right now but with twins so they would be even smaller than one baby would be. But I did get a call from Beth, she is the developmental specialist with the babies in NICU. Kayla had unfortunately spit up one of her other feeds during the night last night so Wendy the night nurse, and Cynthia the day nurse contacted Beth and had her come to see what was up. We have a new plan now, I chatted with Beth for about twenty minutes as to why Kayla seems to be less interested in her bottle and what we can do to help. Thankfully Beth has helped she decided to change Kayla's green nipple a slower flow to the blue nipple a faster flow knowing that Kayla wouldn't have to do as much work in order to get the milk out. So she switched that, she also moved the bottle around more, pushing it up to her palette more like a pacifier so Kayla would naturally suck, also positioning Kayla different ways so Kayla would stay up and interested a bit longer. Well success Kayla finished that whole bottle for Beth, we haven't had more than 20cc's in the last couple of days so the whole bottle was amazing. We talked about the plans for future bottle feeds and I will meet with Beth on Thursday to check and see how Kayla does with the bottles I would like to use at home. I am also set up to talk to a lactation specialist this week to help Kayla with her latch. Also the Dr have decided to lower Kayla's calories currently 24 to 22 of the supplement they put in my breast milk. Kayla has been gaining weight wonderfully and they think that lowering her calories won't make her little body work so hard to grow that she might be more willing to wake up for her feeds. So finally something different I have been hoping we could change something in this plan to help Kayla move forward again. I just pray that this will work and we can get Kayla home???? But the most exciting news of the day....we ordered a stroller ride. I first thought it was funny that we had to put an order in for a stroller ride and get it written off from the Dr before we could do anything. Thankfully the Dr did approve and Mike and I happily packed up Kayla's new stroller and car seat in the back of the car. How cool was it to see a car seat in the back of the car, oh I can't wait. Anyway we went in at 3p for cares Kayla had just had her full bottle feed at 12p and was very out of it so we had her tube fed for her 3p cares. After that we got her all cute an snugly in her car seat, she really does fit in there better than I thought she might. Yes, she does look tiny but it's a good fit for her. We got a portable oxygen tank to travel with us, and a portable monitor to watch her #'s. And out we went, I just about jumped up and down when we got to open that NICU door with Kayla with us, no nurses no doctors, just me, Mike and Kayla. They kept telling us we couldn't take her home, I would be so tempted. :) Mike strolled her first we went to the elevators downstairs and took Kayla outside for the very first time. The weather was a little stormy but nice because it wasn't to hot or to cold for Kayla. We walked around the healing gardens and stared at Kayla the whole time with great big smiles on our faces. It would thunder a little while we were out there and we told Kayla about the rain and what noise that way. It did start to sprinkle, but Kayla just slept through it all. She did so wonderfully she was only on 25% oxygen and stayed above 98% for the whole trip. It was the highlight of the day, week, month, etc I know we will have many stroller trips in her future and was so proud to start that today. Twenty or so pictures later as well as a few videos we brought Kayla back inside and back upstairs. Put her back in the crib but left the car seat there, in hopes that Kayla might see that and think, oh I need to go home mom and dad are waiting for me. :) Mike and I went in again later that night to try out the new bottle feeding method, I fed her and used all the tools I was taught and she did great. She had 48cc's from her 55cc bottle which again is more than she's been taking for the last couple of days. I was so happy and so proud of her, then she gave us something else to be excited about she is now 6lb and 1oz. We diffidently have a newborn now, no more preemie clothes she is a beautiful, big (to us) baby. She stayed awake for all of her bottle tonight and it looks like she might be getting her daddy's eyes. So sweet, thank you Kayla for making my day can't wait to spend my life with you. Love mommy.