January 20

Elsie continues to be stable and is doing well. They started feeding her breast milk again yesterday, and the nurse said that they heard bowel movement sounds through the stethoscope, which is good, and hopefully means that she will be able to digest the milk this time. She is getting 3ml every 6 hours. She has also gained some weight; when I held her momentarily a week ago to get weighed, she was down to 520 grams, which is less than 1 pound. But today she was up to 550 grams, which is about 1 pound 4 oz. Her initial birth weight was 570 grams, or 1 pound 6 oz. Weight gain is good!

Elsie spent some time on her tummy today while we were there. The nurse said that she seems to be more comfortable in that position, which made me laugh because big sister Evje almost always sleeps on her tummy. It's probably more comfortable for Elsie because the incision from her heart surgery is on her back/side, so most likely it doesn't feel so great to lay on top of the stitches. Here's a picture of the incision, which we saw for the first time today, and it surprised us that it was so long. I was picturing something a lot smaller, but hey, they got in and got the job done on a tiny baby, so I shouldn't complain about how big the incision is.

Here's another picture or two of tummy time. Her face is looking soo much better; the bruises are almost all cleared up. And the nurse said that she wouldn't be surprised if her eyes opened up soon, as they've seen her little eyeballs wiggling around under her eyelids. The skin on her back and some other areas looks kinda scaly and dry, but it's all part of her getting used to the dry outside world, as opposed to being nice and wet with amniotic fluid.

I know she's still kinda scary looking, but it's a huge improvement from when she was born. And no matter what she looks like, she's still our beautiful baby Elsie.