Day 12

Today is Evelyn's twelfth day of life (if you don't count the day she was born), and her twelfth day in the hospital. Sometimes it feels like we've been doing this crazy routine forever--going to the hospital multiple times a day for feeding, pumping constantly, and trying to parent Andrew in the meantime (with lots of help from grandma!). But it really hasn't been that long, and I've talked to several parents whose experiences help me keep ours in perspective: one mom said her baby has been in the NICU since early February! (Their baby seems to be something of a miracle baby--born at 23 weeks and actually doing okay.) Another mom, on the verge of discharge, said they'd been at the hospital 99 days. So our measly 12 doesn't seem so bad.

Evelyn's still doing about the same--okay in most respects but struggling to stay awake long enough to eat a substantial amount. She did a little better yesterday--most of her results were in the 20s or 30s (ml), but she did have one bad feeding (only 4 ml!). She's supposed to come off the flourescent lights today, so maybe as her bilirubin levels continue to come down she'll start to feel more awake. We can only hope. We're not quite sure what our current status is--one of the doctors told Dan that they might start us on the 12 hour request when Evelyn hit 37 weeks (that's today), but since her feeding has been rather up and down I'm not sure what they'll want us to do. But we'll let you know as soon as we find out.