3.1K & Finally a Baby

Well, Charlotte’s little attitude attack on Tuesday did lead to another milestone--we’ve hit the all time high weight of 3.1k (that’s +6lbs for you non-metric types). As Philippe has started saying—she’s a baby now, not a “patient.”

Many of you have heard through the grapevine our best news of the week—Dr. Backer told us on Wednesday if she had a good day, he would release her to the cardiology recovery floor, and then maybe home by the weekend. She’s almost home!!!!!!!!! Due to a lack of beds on the 5th floor, however, she’s still in PICU and we think there’s a chance she’ll be released from there. Also, her breathing was very fast most of yesterday and she’s sounding congested, so what we thought was weekend/early next week, may be later in the week. We’ll know more later today. The bottom line—the end of our hospital adventure (this time) is finally in sight. So hard to believe.

Charlotte will be coming home with oxygen and an NG feeding tube. We don’t know how long she’ll require either. I think it has to do with her breathing rate and how well/comfortably she eats from a bottle. I have heebee-jeebees about inserting and maintaining the tube, especially since our little charmer likes to pull it out when she’s angry. So, for selfish reasons, I hope we’re able to start bottle feeding her in the hospital this weekend and begin working toward bottle/breastfeeding.

While the past 7 weeks have been exhausting and trying, the real parenting doesn’t really begin until she gets home. I’m sure that’s when it will really get fun, hard, scary, wonderful, etc. We’ve missed out on a lot of the wonder and fatigue most of our friends experienced in the first 7 weeks of parenthood and we’re both looking forward to making up for lost time with our little gal.