20 days old and I FINALLY get to hold her!

Today was such a great day!  When I talked to the nurse last night, I found out the cultures for infection were NEGATIVE!  Yay!  No infection!  Annelise received her last bit of the blood transfusion last night also.  She was giving the nurse hell when I called at 2am.  :-)  That's my spitfire!

Matt & I got to CHOP in time for rounds this morning.  We like to do that a few times a week to make sure we see the team of doctors and nurse practitioners.  When they rounded to Annelise's room.  They talked about the negative results and how good she looked this morning.  They said they wanted to wean the rate on her ventilator and start steroids tomorrow to get her ready to come off of the ventilator this weekend!  YAY!  So we'll try the extubation again.  The neonatologist really believes that she's ready for this.  All of her films and her effort when she was briefly extubated says that she can do it.  She just needs a little help to keep her airway non-inflammed.  So that's where the steroids come in.  Can't wait to see how it goes.

As we were sitting there, I mentioned to her nurse, that once the ventilator was out, I wanted to hold her.  She said that she would check with the doctors, but she didn't see why I couldn't hold her today.  So she checked and they said yes!  It literally took 3 nurses and about 15 minutes to get her out of the bed and into my arms.  There are very strict rules about holding the babies.  Mom or Dad only (sorry grandparents/aunts/uncles....I double-checked for you!), has to be at least 30 minutes of holding, and only once per day.  Since it was such a production, I was SO grateful to the nurses.

So we did skin-to-skin contact.  I wore a hospital gown over my bra and they laid Annelise on my chest.  Then we wrapped both of us in the gown.  It was so awesome!  I don't know if I appreciated it more because I haven't been able to for so long.....but wow!  How powerful having such a little person in your arms!  She was craning her head to see my face, and messed up the tape on her breathing tube.  (Oh well!)  She fell asleep on my chest for the 40 minutes I had her out.  Her vital signs were so good the entire time.  The nurses were surprised how well she did, considering she has a little hissy fit anytime one of them tries to touch her to do her diaper change, take her temperature, etc. 

This is me and my baby girl!

We got our first family picture while she was out of her bed also.

She wasn't happy to go back into the bed.  She cried.  I was sad too, I understand.  But she calmed down very quickly.  So tomorrow, if she's doing well again, Matt will get to hold her.