two kids and some babies

Briana is doing much better with feeding! She is drinking the required amount of milk a lot of the time now. It’s amazing how quickly she has started to eat better!

Here’s a pic of Brianna tonight, right before I left to come home:

Here’s a couple recent pics of Brianna:

Brianna all cozy in her bed at the hospital.

My Dad holding Brianna.

Brianna now weighs over 6 lbs! YAY! She is such a cutie, I just love kissing her little cheeks!

Today Brianna’s umbilical cord fell off! Now when we take her home, we can give her a normal bath in water!

We have some good updates on Brianna! They are as follows:

- no more chest tubes (she used to have 2)
- no more blue lights blanket (jaundice is gone)
- no more IV or PICC line

The only thing Brianna is “attached” to right now is the NG tube, which goes in her nose. They are still using this for feeding.

Today I was able to see Brianna get her first bottle since the surgery. The nurse had to feed it to her this time because sometimes babies will get their swallowing and breathing mixed up at the beginning. Brianna drank 5cc’s of milk, and hopefully she will keep drinking more at each of her upcoming feedings.

Tomorrow I am going to start nursing Brianna. I hope it goes good!

Below are some pics of my visit with Brianna today:

Yummy!

Since she’s still quite small, they sit her up to drink.

Brianna looking around.

Brian thinks she looks like a puppet with that burp cloth around her.

Me holding Brianna for the first time in over a week.

She’s such a little darling! We had a nice time talking and singing Christmas carols together.

First of all, I’d just like to tell everyone that Brianna had the esophagus test yesterday, where they put dye into her esophagus to see whether it’s all closed up properly, and she passed the test!!! We are so thankful to the Lord for this, because it was a big step for her recovery.

So yesterday they started feeding her my milk through a tube. It’s the tube that goes through her nose, into her stomach (the one she pulled out herself a few days ago.) I’m so happy about this, because I felt so bad that she hadn’t eaten anything till now, although she was getting nutrients through her IV.

The other cool thing is that I got to change her diaper a couple days ago.

Our family.

The entrance to the Reinberger Family Center, which is a nice area in the hospital where families can hang out and relax. There is a nice livingroom area, a toy area, a kitchen, bathrooms, sleeping area, etc, and there are lots of fun things for kids to do.

Brian having fun in the toy room.