Braenna Update June 12

It's hard to believe that our new little one is a whole 5 days old already! She has made some improvement, but is still not ready to come home with us. She has been off of all of the breathing assistance since Sunday evening, which is very good. She is now breathing perfectly on her own and maintaining her body temperature well. She is still not really into eating on her own though. They started out giving her just fluids through her IV. Monday we began incorporating bottle feedings at 4 per day and then giving her the other 4 feedings through her feeding tube. As of Wednesday, they moved her down to 2 bottles per day and 6 feedings through her feeding tube. She still just does not understand that the bottle is food and exactly how to get the food out of there. She is currently eating a lot for a newborn, but the dr's tell us that preemie's need extra calories, especially when they are stressed like she is. I have been supplying as much breast milk as I can, but it's not even close to what they give her in a day, so she is currently receiving a lot of formula as well. Hopefully soon she will drink her 2 full bottles per day so that she can move up to 4 and make it up to 8. Unfortunately, as of now, the end is not really in site for her hospital stay. We've seen little to no improvement in her desire to eat over the last few days. The dr's say she is right at the age where she should be able to get it very soon...some babies do, some babies don't. We are very hopeful that her time is coming soon because we really want to bring her home. Here are a couple of pics from the last few days:

Her first onesie:

Sucking her thumb:

Wide awake...for once!:

5 days old today: