Days 6 & 7 BIG steps!

With days 6 and 7 Olivia again put all of the prayers to action. She, as her Dr. said, "has finally decided that she is done with the preemie thing". On Thursday morning day 6 she was able to get her oxygen tube turned down to %23 and room air is %21. She also did more kangaroo care and this meant that mommy was in heaven! On day 6 she also started to accept most of her feeding...1 and 1/2 ounces during an 8 hour time frame dripped into her stomach...but hey its something!

I call every morning as soon as I wake up to find out how her night went and how she is doing...and for the last several mornings they have gave me good news and hope with each phone call! The big Birthday....Olivia is one week old on Friday day 7.

Because I am so thankful for this week of life, and because I am so thankful for the staff that has kept her safe and alive I decided to make Olivia a week birthday cake to give to the NICU. The cake was similar to the cake I was working on at the time the trauma happened, only much smaller :)

It was a butter yellow cake with strawberry white chocolate filling...I have decided that we will be celebrating every week birthday until she comes home. The baker in me is excited to think up new "birthday" treats to bring the NICU. (my family on the other hand will not be seeing much baking from me for a long while...maybe they will even learn to appreciate a good chocolate chip cookie when they see one!)

On day 7 Olivia has decided that she likes breast milk enough to actually digest it when they put it down her feeding tube...in fact they decided it was time to try 3 ounces in 30 min...and she did great. When they are being feed by a tube the nurses give them the feeding and then they take a syringe and insert it into her feeding tube and suck up anything that is left in her stomach to see what she actually digested. This saves the baby precious calories from spitting or throwing up. As a side note I said one night that I was concerned that all that good colostrum and breast milk from the first 6 or so feedings had gone to waste...and they said, "Oh no, actually we usually end up putting it back down there again later"...ugh gross.