Sunday Funday

Zoey had a busy day today!  When I got there, we tried nursing again.  I think she was too sleepy to concentrate on the task at hand so I told her we would work on that when she's more awake.  It was cool to realize that I'm starting to notice when her sleep and awake times are.  The awake times are very few and very short at this point still, but still a neat Mom moment to start picking up on that.

Next was Zoey's bath since Sunday is one of her designated bath days.  This was only about the third time I've been able to bathe her because of being at work but this time was so different than before because we put her in a box with a hammock to suspend her in the water instead of just a bed bath.  Oh boy....did she LOVE this!  The nurse said it really makes them feel like they're in the womb still so they find comfort in that but she was Soooooo relaxed!  We kept trying to adjust her head straight but she kept moving it back to be more in the water (as you can see in the picture).  We have our own little fish it seems. :-)  The nurse said that in her 23 years of working in the NICU this was the first time she remembers putting a baby in the bath bin where they didn't cry and loved it so much.  It was neat hearing her say this.  She kept commenting on how calm Zoey is and just so content with everything in life.

Before having to leave to head back to Eau Claire since I work Monday and Tuesday, we got in some more kangaroo time.  ALWAYS my favorite part of every day I'm down there. Her stats improved almost immediately.  The nurse also commented on this how relaxed she got and how fast she settled in on me after looking at her stats.  Her heart rate dropped to about 120 beats per minute which was still a healthy range and her oxygen saturation was at 100% for quite a while.  We both fell asleep for a while and when I woke up I realized I needed to leave soon so I sat there for another 30 minutes delaying the inevitable.  Every day I have to leave her is hard, but today was so much more difficult for some reason.  I don't know if it was just from everything we had done together this weekend or if it's just from this being a long process or both maybe.  Who knows for sure, but as usual, I cried saying goodbye to her, I cried periodically on the way home, and then I cried when I tried telling Ray about it, and again while trying to fall asleep (I was too sad last night to sleep).  It might all be because she's in the room where families prepare to go home, because she's made some changes this past week like getting into a big girl crib, I don't really know, but I think it's all making me wish we were just home already.  I realize that in time this will happen but I am getting to want that time to be now.  Guess I will just hurry up and wait for that...something that has gotten to be a regular routine for us throughout this process.