Always a surprise with her!

To give you a little NICU room organizational info, there are 5 rooms total (at our hospital anyways), numbered 1 to 5. Room 5 is for the babies in the most serious condition, and Room 1 is for the babies closest to heading home. Our little Audrey started out in Room 3, which was a surprise, since we thought she'd likely be in Room 4 (but she didn't need help breathing and went straight from birth to Room 3). SO I went in to see little Audrey last night at 8pm. I had been there at 2 that afternoon to feed her, David went back at 5pm with Mimi to give her a bath and all seemed to be normal. I approach the desk wearing my name tag with her room #3B, the receptionist looks at my tag and looks at the list, then looks at my tag and back at the list....then says YOUR baby is in room 1. I felt like I had just won the biggest prize ever at the gameshow. I looked around the lobby and expected applause and cheers as I fought back the weepy joy I could barely contain. The reality that this little girl just made a huge jump without any warning moving her closer to home with our family was overwhelming.

The nurse said she had already completed her assessment, which included her weighing in at a whopping 3lbs 6ozs. She hinted that Audrey would be coming out of the isolette if she had gained weight over the past 5 days...which I knew she had. So this morning when I returned to see her, she was in an open crib for the first time. Today they increased her nipple feedings to 2 out of every 3 feedings, and if she does great with that they will push a little further and see how she handles taking all of her feedings from bottle and breast. Once she gains the strength to eat independently and continues to gain weight, I think our littlest moose will come home. Nurse Andrea indicated it could be as early as next week....we have a lot of work to do! Crazy to imagine after all we've experienced, this half pint is gonna come home with us soon.