Cartilage

There are so many weird things about very early preemies that I would have never even thought about. When Cam was born she had no cartilage in her ears. It was so funny, all she had was the flaps of skin. Looking at them you wouldn't be able to tell because the skin was in the shape of an ear but you could completely flatten them with your fingers. Anyways, I was holding her today and noticed her ears sticking out a little more so I touched them and lo and behold, she has cartilage now! They told me it would form after about 32 weeks but I hadn't checked in a while. In a way it's actually pretty amazing to be able to see your baby developing outside the womb!

In other news, there is definitely a lot going on in the near future. They are still weaning the air flow in her cannula and they are hoping to get rid of it completely by next week! SO exciting! Also, if you remember from wayyy back when I talked about her being on caffeine, they are hoping to get rid of that too by next week. Now that she's almost 34 weeks corrected they expect her to start acting more like a big girl and do most everything on her own. She needs to regulate her own heart rate and breathing instead of getting help from the caffeine and she needs to be able to breathe without the cannula.

As far her feedings go, tomorrow is the official day they are starting bolus feeds. They will give her Tuesday and Wednesday to make sure she is tolerating it well and then start her bottle feeds on Thursday. So we have an official plan finally instead of just "soon". We tried to "breast feed" on Saturday and she was not interested at all. We couldn't get her to wake up enough to even realize what was going on so I'm not surprised. I don't know why I even bothered, I guess I was just really eager for the first attempt. Her doctor wants me to start trying every day when she is very alert. She has SUCH a strong urge to suck when she's awake so I'm sure she will take to it. She will stay awake as long as you give her the pacifier. She treats it like a bottle, she doesn't just suck but she sucks and swallows as if she's eating. The nurses think she is definitely ready to bottle feed but we just have to make sure her belly can handle such large amounts at a time first.

And because I can't get enough of her in her cute little outfits, more pictures :)

Baby burrito