A Day Of Firsts

Today was such a fantastic day! When I woke up this morning I left my room and went to see Avery like I do every morning. I got the best surprise when I got to her incubator. The nurses told me that she had done so well overnight that they had been able to completely wean her off of the Nitric. I was sooo happy! She is still on oxygen but hopefully she will be able to be off that by tomorrow evening. Wyatt was also able to spend most of the day with us which was soo great! It was nice to be able to just spend time together as our little family of three and talk about everything that's been going on lately.
Avery also decided that she doesn't want to be fed through a tube anymore so when I was feeding her this afternoon she reached up and pulled the feeding tube completely out of her nose. It really scared me but she was happy as could be as soon as it was out.

Once again the IV that they gave her didn't last and since all the veins in her hands and feet are blown we have now moved on to her little tiny arms. So far so good. This IV has lasted longer than all of the previous ones so we're hoping it's a keeper. Avery also hasn't lost any weight since she got here so the doctor decided to only keep her IV for her antibiotics that she has to have every couple hours but to stop the IV fluids so that her little body will start to level out and she won't be so puffy and swollen. I was so happy when they told me that because it's one less cord to get in our way when we're holding her.

Today we had our wonderful nurse Jessica who worked her magic once again. She is always so sweet with Avery and she always makes me feel comfortable and if I need to leave Avery to go sleep or eat I know that she'll be well taken care of. Jessica helped Wyatt and I give Avery her first bath today! Wyatt did so good and helped out a lot. It was only a sponge bath but she smelled so much better afterwards and she really liked it. Avery loves to have her hair washed and she was dozing off the whole time. It was sooo cute. And because a couple of Avery's cords have been taken away she was finally able to wear pajamas for the first time. Compared to all of the other NICU babies here she looks huge so I thought that the pj's i brought for her would probably be too small but they definitely weren't. They're a little baggy but she loved them and went right to sleep after we put them on.

Wyatt and I constantly talk about how much we love our little girl and how much our lives have changed in the last week. We fall more in love with her every day and can't imagine life without her. We just feel so blessed to be able to be her mommy and daddy and can't wait till we can finally take her home and take care of her, and love on her and not have to constantly check monitors to make sure that we're holding her right correctly or that her oxygen levels aren't going down. She's getting stronger every day and we know that our time at home as a family is just around the corner and we can't wait!

Love
The McCandless Family