Cribside Assessment

Now that our little big girl is sleeping in a crib the assessment will be a little different. The main difference concerns what has always been the most dramatic moment of the assessment: the weigh-in. You see her isolette has a built-in scale, but her crib has no such fancy gadgetry. So Ellie will have to be weighed in a separate scale. Well it turns out the scale she gets weighed on now is all the way across the NICU and we won't be able to see it from Ellie's room. This means we won't get to see her weigh in! So we'll have to wait patiently for the nurse to return with the news. Well that's okay, I don't mind being patient ... well for a little while ... not too long though. Here they are: She gained 50 grams tonight taking her to 1950 grams. :) So that is technically 4 lbs. 4.8 oz., but we'll go with 5 oz! Her height was steady at 17 inches. Nurse Korrie reminded us that there is variation in the scales (isolette vs. free scale).

It Just Didn't Register

So we went to register last night. We were going to go right after dinner. Well we didn't end up eating dinner until 7 pm when they kick us out of the NICU for half and hour. We of course got talking to another NICU mom at dinner (i.e. 7 p.m. when all of us NICU parents get booted for a half hour). She was having a frustrating day. Her little guy, Nathaniel is 35 weeks gestation and took a bunch of steps backwards during his feedings (having bradies/apnea/choking/turning blue/needing stimulation)...so we invited her to eat with us. Please pray for little Nathaniel and his eating! *good note though: today, I saw Amy and she said they changed the nipple on his bottle and it's making a great difference. YAY! Anyways...then it was 8 p.m. so we stayed for her assessment. And then we got to talking to our nurse, and before we knew it it was 9:30 p.m. We thought Target was open until 11 p.m., but to our surprise, it was only open until 10 p.m. :( So this afternoon we actually went and started our registry at Target and Babies R Us. It was pretty fun, but kind of overwhelming at the same time. Ok..all you moms out there - what is the one thing that is a "must have" for the baby/baby's care, etc???

Hanging Out at Ellie's New Crib

Mandy held Ellie at her 5 pm feeding. Then instead of returning her to her isolette we returned her to her crib. Now Ellie is chillin' in her new crib! The crib is pretty cute so we had to get some pictures. Don't worry, we got the powercat transferred over. Although it only has so many unstick/restick cycles left in its valiant lifetime. Needless to say Ellie is getting cuter and cuter and her transition to the crib was no exception. Now that she is in a crib it is amazing how much more we can here her. Every noise is both cute and distracting. Mandy and I agree that this seems more normal. Although neither one of us probably has a good idea what normal is anymore. We have also noticed that she is more susceptible to the noises in the room. We are doing our best to keep even quieter than when she was in her isolette. We're using indoor voices that would make even Marian the Librarian smile. But our main concern now that she's in a crib is her increased exposure. Since she is exposed completely to the open air she is more at risk for the passing of germs from parents and visitors. As a measure of caution we are asking that we have no visitors this week. (I know...this is really hard for us, trust me!) We think that this will be best for Ellie as she transitions from isolette to crib. Please pray that she will remain healthy during this time. Also please pray that we will be able to spend some time doing homework and find some time to take a trip to Manhattan before she starts bottle feeding. Ben and Mandy