First of all, my peanut is one month old today!
A month has gone so fast and yet so slow. It’s weird.
The thing with preemies is you are supposed to judge milestones by their adjusted age (actual age-minus weeks born early), so technically my little peanut is still -5 weeks old, but whatever. Anyways, this month she started breathing unassisted, started to nipple feed, successfully finished 2 full bottles (and drank at least some from 6 bottles), latched on to the breast and attempted to suck a little twice, and pooped through a diaper and an outfit for the first time. She also removed her CPAP multiple times, her nasal cannula multiple times, and her OG tube multiple times. Nice work for someone who isn’t even “born” yet. Oh, and she passed her eye exam on Wednesday.
She’s officially 4 pounds, 1.8 ounces, which is a gain of 1 pound, 7.2 ounces in the past month. That’s a pretty impressive percentage of her body weight. I’d totally try to take credit, but they put extra calories in my breast milk before they serve it to her, so umm, it’s not me. Probably shouldn’t have eaten half of a pizza last night (breast feeding makes you starving). They had to give her a bigger blood pressure cuff and pacifier a few days ago.
So far Charlotte has met scores of nurses, and her four biological grandparents. The NICU is still in flu season lockdown, so she’s not actually allowed more visitors than us and those four. I’m really hoping she gets to meet her stepgrandparents and Aunt Cay soon, although there are some distance issues in that equation.
So kiddo, I’m hoping the crib goes well tomorrow and then all that’s left is for you to master bottle feeding (and maybe breast feeding) so we can bring you home. Your crib is made up (not that I actually expect you to sleep there), your car seat is installed, your swing is put together, and your clothing is washed through newborn sizes. The only thing left to do is buy you diapers, but we are waiting until we know what size you need (preemie is still kind big, but that could change in a week if you keep growing like this). You could be home in a week if you really put your mind to it.
I’m trying to exercise patience, but waiting for her to “get” nipple feeding is a struggle. I’m actually going to stop bottle feeding her myself because we both get so frustrated. She’s come so far in a month and I need to focus on that instead of what she isn’t doing yet, which is still normal for her age. Being this impatient is kind of inappropriate for mine, though. I need to work on that.
But really, this kid is so darn cute, even with a tube shoved up her nose. I cannot get enough.