One of the big girls

Things are starting to happen really fast now. They told me this would happen, things would go slow for a while and then all of a sudden it would take off. She is almost three pounds and is now regulating her own body temperature. That is one of the things I knew needed to happen before she went home but I just didn't realize it was coming this soon. Here is how it works: She wears a temperature probe that is hooked up to her isolette. They "set" her body temperature to 36.5 C and the isolette would adjust its' own temperature to keep hers close to 36.5. So if her temp drops a little bit the isolette raises its temperature and vice versa. Well, now they just set her isolette to a certain temperature and she has to maintain her body temp herself. It is kept a little bit warmer so she doesn't have to work as hard since she still doesn't quite have the body fat she needs. After this, the only thing left is the open air crib!

This also means that she is big enough to start wearing clothes! And now when we hold her, they can take her out and swaddle her up instead of kangarooing. Plus we can get her out every time we're there, not just every other day or once a day or whatever, but every time. If one of us is there, she is out of her isolette :D The babies can't really wear clothes or be swaddled until they are big and mature enough to regulate their body temperature themselves. It feels good to be able to treat her like a normal baby. She is really becoming one of the "old" babies. They are talking about moving her to what's called the "developmental room". This is a room for babies who are bigger and no longer need lots of support. They are basically just there to grow and feed until discharge.

The shirt is still a tad big :)

I don't want to imply that other moms take their babies health for granted because I know the most important thing to a mom is her child's health. But I don't think you can truly know the value of just being able to hold your baby whenever you want until you have either been through a situation like this or been close to someone who has. It's definitely not a good feeling to have to just sit and stare at your baby.

Cameron's NICU stay is getting down to the wire and there are only a few milestones we have left to reach before she comes home. Getting rid of her nasal cannula, getting out into the open air crib, and bottle feeding. That's it. It's so crazy because I never thought we would get to this point. Don't get me wrong, working with her on bottle feeding can take a while and it's probably the biggest hurdle but I am SO glad to be done with that "critical" stage of the NICU. When the doctors do their rounds in the morning, they start with the most critical babies. Cameron was first for a long time but now she is pretty much last. I watch her doctor round on all his other babies first and then come over to Cameron and I love it! I hated being the smallest and sickest baby there, not that anybody likes it, but it was the worst feeling. I always looked at the moms holding their swaddled and clothed babies with envy. So being at this point feels really, really, REALLY good!!!