Mom is going home today...

Today I am being discharged from the hospital.  We are very thankful to all the wonderful staff that has taken such good care of me the week that I have been here.  I know I will be missing my wonderful nurses as I continue to recover at home.  Good thing I am related to some great nurses, huh?  Plus I have Nurse Brian, who has been so incredible through all of this.

Now we are entering the next phase of having to leave our sweet Ingrid here.   We know she is in good hands, but please keep us in your prayers and thoughts as we know the next few weeks will be challenging.  All of your nice messages have really sustained us.  Thank you for being patient with us if we have been slow to respond.  Also, we know many people are excited to meet Ingrid, so we are taking visitors slowly as we need to make sure our focus is on her.

We still don't know how long Ingrid will be here.  We have been told that they like to keep babies up until they would be full term.  For Ingrid that would be about 4 weeks.  What they really want is to make sure they are able to breath and eat on their own.  Breathing is going well for her, so that is good.  Right now she is still being fed by gavage, so they are putting my milk directly into her tummy.  Typically babies born this early need a lot of extra help learning how to nurse.  We met with a lactation consultant today and had our first "nursing class" together.  Ingrid was a bit sleepy, but showed a little interest, so that was promising.   Also she had some jaundice, but that has improved for now so she is no longer in a "tanning bed".  All the doctors and nurses continue to tell us how pleased they are with how well she is doing.  They also tell us how cute she is all the time.   Of course we already know that she is the cutest baby here.  :)

I think that is all for now.  Check back for more updates later.
Love,
Kristy, Brian and Ingrid