Overachievers

Ava took half a bottle yesterday! Last week I met with a speech therapist to discuss transition from gavage feeding (feeding tube through her nose and to her stomach) to nipple feeding (nursing and bottle). Why a speech therapist? Well they look at all the signs a baby is ready to feed herself, like rooting, sucking, waking up when she's hungry. Ava started doing this last week, so we had an initial test run. I was excited to see what she would do, and it was pretty anticlimactic when the therapist presented Ava with a bottle and she only sucked 4 times before the therapist took it out and told me she wanted to wait a few more days. Ava had the sucking down, just not the breathing during the sucking. So yesterday she tried again and Ava took 22 mL of milk, which is half her feeding. She's really young to do this, and everyone was impressed. The goal is to get her to complete a whole feeding by bottle, and then they will increase her bottles until she is completely bottle fed. It could take awhile to do this, but this is a big step for her and one step closer to going home.

She's really changed in appearance the last few days. Now that she's 4 pounds and 10 ounces, she looks like a real baby. She's also doing super cute baby things instead of super scary preemie things.

My other overachiever, Sophia, is into the "let me do it myself" stage. She does everything really well all by herself, I might add. It's incredibly frustrating when I'd like her to do certain things within a time frame. But with Sophia, it's on her own time. She's stubborn. Boy is she stubborn. And you know what? So am I and so is Rick. And Sophia is super smart, too smart for her own good. She has a memory like an elephant. I can't believe she's only 2.5 years old and remembers the coffee mugs from last Christmas. She knew there was a picture inside each coffee mug and asked to look at them before I washed them. That's just one of many examples. Lately, to get her to go to bed, I've been telling her what she can look forward to when she wakes up the next morning. And when she wakes up, the first thing out of her mouth is a reminder of what I've promised her. Nothing gets past her.

It's been a challenge to juggle time with Sophia and time at the NICU with Ava. I feel like I never get enough time with them and am not doing a great job with either. I have to remind myself that it's only temporary and that Ava will be home soon. And then it'll be a feeling of guilt that every normal mother feels about dividing their time between the newborn's needs and the other child. I just hope during this whole process I don't completely screw up with Sophia.