Day 25

After several days of turmoil, I am happy to report that we had a good day today! Today was Blaine's first day back to work since Brynn's birth. Drury's art department has been so amazing and called Blaine a few days after Brynn was born to tell him that they were covering all of his courses for him for 3 weeks. I don't really know how I could have managed the last 3 weeks on my own without that valuable time off. While he went to work, I went in for my first NICU visit of the day around 11:00 AM. When I got there, one of our favorite nurses, Sandi, was on duty. She reported that Brynn gained a whopping ounce in the last day and she is now up to 2 lbs 6 oz. It's pretty common for her to gain a lot and then lose a little the next day, so we're prepared to hold pretty steady for the next day or two. The other big news was that they started feeding her again today! She started today with 3 ml of breastmilk which is less than 1 tsp. If things go well and her tummy tolerates the food, they will increase her intake by 1 ml every 6 hours until she reaches her maximum amount (around 20 ml). Sandi told me that Brynn had her first bath the night before. She even showed me the little bathtub they used to bathe her. For me, the news was bittersweet. I was excited that she'd had her first bath, but it was once again difficult to know that not only had I missed another "first," but I hadn't even known it was going on. The nurses were nice enough to take some pictures for us and I'll try to get them posted here in the next day or so.
I also discussed the occupational therapist's suggestion that before we begin trying to bottle feed, Brynn will need to learn to tolerate being out of her isolette more frequently. Sandi agreed and changed our orders to read "holding or skin-to-skin contact prn." For those of you less familiar with all this medical lingo, this translates to "we get to hold her anytime we want!!" So, for her first feeding at noon, I got to actually hold her in my lap cuddled up in a new blanket from her Nana. While she got her food, I held her pacifier in her mouth to get her used to sucking while her tummy gets full. Blaine arrived for a quick visit during his lunch break while I was holding her. For one of the first times, things felt semi-normal to me. I was getting to hold my baby while actually looking at her and letting her suck on a pacifier. It was a priceless moment that I'll probably never forget.
We went back for our second visit after Riley went to bed. An MSU student and family friend, Chelsea Foreman, is going to be coming to babysit from 8-10 on Monday and Wednesday nights so that Blaine and I can visit Brynn together now that he's back at work. When we got there, Brynn was receiving her second blood transfusion and for a second I was afraid that we would lose another chance to hold her. But, her nurse let us go ahead and hold her while the transfusion was being processed. She laid on my chest and promptly fell asleep for the entire hour I held her. We left for home feeling really good after several days of anxiety and heartache.