One Step Forward...Two Steps Back......

So the last few days have been a little bit of a roller coaster.

I will start with the good stuff.

One great piece of news is that Eloise was moved into a normal baby bed. That means no temp control, IV, etc. She has only a few monitors on her, but no other support. She is able to wear clothes now and be bundled up and held more easily.

The other great news is that I am producing large amounts of milk. Yesterday I got to try and breastfeed Eloise for the first time. It went amazingly well! She latched right on as if she had done this a million times before. We were so pleased. I was able to nurse her again today and she did a super job again. She is drinking a good amount of milk and seems to love the tummy time with her mama:) We have been undressing her for her feedings so her tummy is up against my tummy, and she is so comfy. I am bonding more and more with her through this and can't wait to bring her home!!

The not so good stuff:

We are aching for Eloise to come home and be with us. Sadie talks about her all day long and carries around my phone with a wallpaper pic of Eloise and "talks to her." She also tells us how she wants the baby to "ride ride" next to her in the car. Bo and I are having a hard time being patient as well.

On Monday she was doing so well, we thought we would get to bring her home on Thurs. When we talked to the nurses and Drs they estimated Friday. Then after another convo with the Dr, we learned that she had had a couple of choking episodes during her feedings where she would stop breathing and all of her stats would drop. They then told us that it would be Sun morning when we would be able to come get her. Then, in the last 36 hrs, she has started having choking episodes at almost every feeding except for the times I nursed her. The policy at the NICU is that you have to wait 3 days from the last choke before the baby is released to come home. With all of the chokes she has been having, we are no longer on a countdown or have an estimate of when she will be coming home. We feel pretty discouraged today because we don't know how long to expect it to take for her to grow out of this or when she will be able to come home.

Please pray for 1)patience for us as a family
2)Logistics of childcare and rides to the hospital and Bo's work etc.
3) Eloise to grow out of her choking reflex and stopping breathing &
for her feedings to go smoothly from here on out
4) for a few tests they are running on her upper GI tract & her
throat and swallowing tom. That they would come back normal.
5) my recovery to continue to go smoothly from here on out.

I will post pics soon from today. Too tired right now....