"Sometimes I pretend that I'm a ballerina. This is how we passé..."
"And then we move into a demi-pointe!"
"Mom says I'll be a dancer, and dad thinks I'll play soccer. Boy, are they in for a surprise..."
[YAWN] "Boring!"
"Guys, please don't make future plans for me. I'm still little."
Don't worry Belle, we won't push you into anything. We promise! 😊
Someone from the staff came by last week and gave us these lovely stickers for our wall. It was very thoughtful, don't you think? You know that Kiera and I absolutely had to put them up.
We feel right at home here. Can you tell?
In the photo above you might have noticed a bag hanging from the light fixture. That's how we've been feeding Arabella over the last few days.
They call it the 'gravity bag'. It's slightly different from the old way of feeding Belle.
For a long time we used these 60mL syringes. We would fill them up, snap them into a machine, and set a timer for Belle's feed. Unfortunately, those machines cost a lot of money, and the hospital doesn't lend them out to patients, either.
It was about time for Arabella to graduate to the gravity bag.
The gravity bag is cheaper, it holds more volume, and it still provides us with speed control (somewhat). We're still getting the hang of it.
At times it's hard to control the speed of the trickle. If the feed is sent through too quickly, for example, Belle is more likely to reflux and even throw up. We do our best not to overwhelm her stomach, so we try to slow down the trickle to a nice and steady pace.
Today she happened to throw up after her 3pm feed, but throw-ups happen to all babies, and we have no reason to be concerned. The important thing is that Arabella tolerates nearly all of her feeds.
Bottle feeding is something that still requires a lot of work, but we'll get there eventually. Today Belle only took about 30mL total from the bottle.
After her throw-up, there was a mandatory wardrobe change, and then it was onto "Act II" for this little ballerina.
Arabella waving to everyone.
Looking back at today's photos I immediately noticed how chunky she's looking. Then again, she's been chunky for a while!
The doctors have discontinued one of her stronger diuretics so we might see her start to puff out a little bit more now.
Bring it on!
After seeing Arabella look so incredibly weak and frail when she first came out, we sure adore seeing all of her chubby rolls.
All of us have come a long way to get here. It's hard to think that we'll be wrapping everything up next week.
We're anxious, we're a little nervous, but most of all we're so excited. Coming home is going to be such a joyful celebration. It's been nearly 6 months of hospitals for the three of us.
Now we'll simply have to take the hospital home with us. We'll have our own mini-NICU arranged at home, you can count on it 😄
Nurse mom and dad will continue to do what they're already doing here, and eventually we'll be known as just regular old mom and dad.
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