Gold Sticker Please

Ellie did so well on her bottle feedings yesterday that she is now on ad lib feedings! She got her 9 am feeding as usual and took the whole bottle. Sometime before that feeding started (or at least before it was over) Ellen wrote the order to let her have a bottle at every feeding if she is awake and alert. We are very excited at the news ... but not as excited as we are at the other news. Mandy decided to try breastfeeding today instead of tomorrow. Ellie was awake and ready at noon even after bottle feeding 9 am so Mandy tried it then. We were making sure that we didn't have too high of hopes because we knew that a lot of babies don't do all that well on the first try. But not so little Ellie ate 22 mL! *UPDATE: They measure how much she takes from the breast by weighing her before and after she eats. In case some of you wondered how exactly that was "measured." Then she took some additional from a bottle. (She did still have a little left over given to her through her feeding tube.) We were very excited! Mandy and I have just been on cloud nine ever since. We are both thoroughly amazed by our daughter She definitely deserves a gold lettered princess sticker for that. Praise God for how well our Ellie is doing. We are both so thankful that she did so well on her first time. And the nurses and Ellen are all really impressed and very happy for us. We can't wait to try bottle feeding at 3 o'clock.