Happy One Week Birthday, Coen!

Coen turned one week old today. This week has both flown and dragged. But Coen decided to make the most of his big day. As of today, he:

Is off oxygen.

Is free of umbilical lines and IVs.

Is done with the bilirubin lights for jaundice.

Is taking his feedings by mouth.

Is wearing adorable an adorable outfit.

AND

I got to hold and nurse him for the first time today!


It's been a big day here. He's definitely a McCall and loves to eat, which is no surprise. It's been a really wonderful and exhausting day, for sure. Here are some pictures from yesterday and today that I've been meaning to post.  Yes, there are several since I couldn't pick which ones to post.

What a week it has been!

There's something about Coen

I'm about to update about Coen again but I feel kind of bad. I'm not neglecting the other kids, I promise! They spent the day at the zoo today with their Grandma and had a great time. They've been shuttling back and forth between my mom and my aunt and uncle and having a grand old time. I came home from the hospital last night and spent time with the four of them and it was really nice.

All four of them have met their brother now, and Ava and Jace are just in love with him. Seth thought he was cute but I could tell he thought he was just some random baby until last night when we were getting ready for bed. All of a sudden he looked at my stomach and yelled "Where's the baby?! Where'd he GO?"

It was hilarious. Then this morning when we were all checking into the NICU, it's like it all clicked for Seth and he took off down the hallway yelling "New Baby! New Baby!"

It was adorable. Then he started trying to climb into Coen's bed, which wasn't so adorable.

Evany just kind of smiled at the baby and then wandered off to play in the NICU's play area.

Yes. The NICU has a huge family lounge with a play area. It's amazing. This whole experience has just been great. I came home to sleep last night, which I have almost never done when I have a baby in the NICU. It's a huge testament to how much I trust these doctors and nurses. I feel totally comfortable with him being there even when I can't be, which is huge considering I can be a bit of a control freak.

So back to Coen. Man, I just love saying his name. I hardly let myself say it while I was pregnant because we were keeping the name a secret and now that it's officially his name I just can't say it enough. It fits him so well already and I have loved this particular name for years but it just never fit the other boys. But this baby is definitely the Coen I've been waiting to name.

As of last night when I left the hospital he was on the verge of being put on the ventilator. He was struggling and his doctor had a conversation with me about how it was time and that he would most likely be putting him on the ventilator after his next blood gas and x-ray. So I basically prepared myself for the vent and got my head wrapped around it. Both Seth and Jace were on it, so we've been there, and while it was a huge bummer, I wanted what was best for Coen. He was in pain, he was struggling, and I totally agreed with the doctor...it was looking like it was time.

Can I just say again how much I love Coen's doctors? They're all amazing. One of them was chatting with us yesterday and he commented on how calm I was and he said "Usually I go into a room and say hello and the mom immediately starts bawling. It's not great for my self esteem!"

So when I walked in this morning to see a quiet, peaceful baby who was actually on less oxygen than he was on last night and was most definitely not on a ventilator, I was shocked, to say the least! He looked like a different baby. To top it off, his pneumothorax was almost completely resolved and he just seemed a hundred times more content than he did last night.

It was pretty awesome. His nurse from yesterday was as surprised as I was and when his doctor poked his head in, we joked about how Coen must have heard him threatening to put him on the vent. He laughed and said "This is what I like about you! You always have a smile for me." I just love that the doctors caring for him actually talk to me instead of just talking at me and moving on.

Then...then! Coen started waving his arms around and I jumped up to see what was wrong and he kept raising his eyebrows and wiggling around and then he opened his eyes for the very first time! Up until now he's been like a newborn kitten. It was so cool to see him open his eyes and look around! He's obviously a genius since he was kind enough to wave his arms and let me know something big was about to happen.

And this is officially too long. I have a bunch of things to write about but they can all wait until later. The good news is that Coen is, as of now, doing well and we're all head over heels in love with him. I already can't imagine not having him with us and it's so surreal to me that just a few days ago I hadn't met him and had no idea who he'd be. You guys are going to have to put up with me gushing about him for a while longer...he's just amazing and I can't get over how blessed I am to have these amazing children. The tough parts don't hold a candle to the blessings of this family I have.

Hope everyone has a great night!

He's Hanging In There

Coen was officially three days old this morning. He's had a little bit of a rough time. After my last post, Coen's doctor decided that after doing a needle aspiration it was clear that his lungs were not just being affected by the pneumothorax, and so overnight they intubated him and gave him a dose of surfactant to help get his lungs inflating properly. Luckily they were able to extubate him shortly after.  He improved quickly but by the next morning he had a huge pneumothorax on the opposite side. They showed me his x-rays and the pocket of air was so big his lung was almost completely deflated and his heart was even being shoved over into the other side of his chest.

So Coen's now the proud (temporary) owner of a chest tube. Luckily the needle aspiration worked on the other side, so he doesn't have a tube in each side. Since that was inserted, he's really improved and they were able to take him off C-PAP and switch him to a high flow nasal canula. He's straddling the line at this point...the C-PAP was too damaging to his lungs but his blood gases haven't been great with the canula, so we'll see what happens. Until he gets this chest tube out no cuddling is allowed, and I'm dying to hold him.

The good news is that he's getting very small amounts of breast milk every three hours and his very rapid breathing (over a hundred breaths a minute at one point) has slowed down markedly.

Baby steps.

The plus to getting off the C-PAP is that they took off a hat that was helping keep it in place and I finally got to see his hair! I have no clue who he looks like at this point. His face is still quite swollen and he's been in some pain from the chest tube so I don't think he really looks like himself yet. But I was able to take some great pictures in the dark last night (Thank goodness for fast 50mm lesnses!), so here are some of the boy.

The third time really is a charm!

Evany is 11 days old today. Or, I should say, she will be eleven days old at 9:22 tonight. Her gestational age is 34 weeks 1 day. She is the same age as Seth was when he was born, and she is a week younger than Jace was when he was born. This NICU stay, my third, has been dramatically different than my first two with Vivi's big brothers. Mostly because it hasn't been dramatic at all, other than her actual birth. Instead, we've all been shocked at how she has thrived with very few setbacks or issues.

She was born and had amazingly high APGAR scores considering she had just been in serious distress in utero and was fighting an infection. Within moments of her birth, she was already surprising everyone.

She came out crying and she never needed a single breath of oxygen, even though an X-Ray showed that her lungs were most definitely immature.

When she was a day old, she insisted on eating even though everyone said she probably wouldn't be able to drink from a bottle and that she might not be able to digest the food properly.

On her second day of life, the doctor sent off a spinal fluid sample, concerned that Evany could have meningitis because of some test results they had received. What came back, though, was a whole lot of nothing. In fact, the infection that was deemed "very serious" from the cultures the day before was already responding to the antibiotics she was receiving.

When she was three days old. she received a feeding tube. Most babies at her gestational age grow too tired to take all their feedings by mouth, and everyone thought she'd need it. But Evany decided she wasn't cool with that and she wasn't tired at all, so she pulled it right out, and ate well enough to keep it out. I was also able to nurse her for the first time on day 3, and she latched perfectly from the get go, even though she was supposed to be too young. Her neonatologist said that on paper she was a very sick baby, but that Evany had apparently not gotten that message.

At four days of age, Evany was supposed to receive a PICC Line, since was on high levels of fluids and antibiotics and her IV's weren't lasting long at all. There was no one on staff to do it that day, so it got put off. By the time someone came in who could do the line, she had begun eating so much and her IV fluids had decreased so much that she no longer needed the PICC line!

When Evany was five days old, she decided that taking the normally accepted two weeks or so to regain her birth weight was silly, and she hit the magic number on day 5.

On Evany's sixth day of life, she started dressing up in adorable outfits and we prepared for her to be moved out of the incubator. She was nursing for more than half her feedings at this point, and taking a bottle for the rest.

When she was seven days old, Evany had a cranial ultrasound to check for the brain bleeds and bruising that are all too common with premature babies. But not for her! Everything was completely clear. She had a short setback moving into an open crib, but on the second try she "passed" and waved goodbye to the incubator for good!

At eight days of age, Evany got kicked out of her private room....and she moved in with me! At this point, she began exclusively nursing.

She wasn't content to stop there, though. When Evany was nine days old, she passed her car seat study without a single dip in her oxygen levels.

On her tenth day of life, Evany passed her hearing screen and let me know I would need to start working on getting the kids to learn to be quiet at naptime, which I've never had to do before. Her doctor asked me if I was positive about my dates as she acted so much older than she was. (Yes, I'm 100% sure.)

Today, on December 11th, Evany is 11 days old. Did you know that 11 is my very favorite number? Every day, Evany has made amazing progress. It would take a lot to top everything she's already done, but people...she's done it.

Today, Evany is coming home.

You can tell me this is all good luck, that everything just happened to fall into place, but I don't believe it. There is no way all this progress is a coincidence, that my daughter is coming home at just 34 weeks gestational age when we were told to expect to spend Christmas at the hospital, when just 11 nights ago I thought she might not make it at all. It's a miracle to me that tonight, we'll be celebrating Evany's 11 day birthday at home, with all of my kids under the same roof.

God is so good, and every single prayer that has gone up in Evany and our family's honor is so appreciated. Personally, I think that her big brother Eli could have had a little something to do with this, too.

We're going home!

Hint: They only give you this cute sticker when it's good news.

Take a wild guess...

about why this picture is kind of awesome.

Trucking Along

What's Evany so excited about?

Well, she's taken one more step towards going home!

Okay, Okay. She's can't walk yet, so she didn't actually take any steps.

She's not that advanced, people.

But she did pass her car seat study! Not one single dip in her oxygen saturation in 90 minutes. How cool is that??? God is so good.

Warning: The next paragraph is nerdy CPST talk...

Doesn't she look ridiculously tiny in that seat? My goodness. But the child passenger safety tech in me LOVES how well it fits her! She's way too small to fit correctly in Seth's infant seat, (Oh, my beloved Orbit...) so I finally get to try out the Chicco Keyfit in an up close and personal way until she grows into it! I have to say, I'm impressed with this seat. The straps are below her shoulders, the chest clip is proportioned nicely for her body, and the buckle isn't ridiculously huge. Plus, the infant support in there positions her really nicely and supports her head. This seat really fits preemies well, which I've always heard but never been able to test out personally since my preemies haven't historically been preemie sizes.

Sleep Tight

Goodnight, Baby.

Doesn't it feel like she's been here a whole lot longer than 9 days?

I can't imagine life without her.

I can't wait to take her home.

I've been here for two full weeks now, and it feels like two months.

I can't believe Christmas is coming in practically two weeks. Wasn't it just Thanksgiving?

I forgot to order stockings with the our names. I mean to do that every year, and I never do.

Can you tell I have reached a level of exhaustion that won't allow me to write in paragraphs?

I think I need to go find some cake before Evany's next feeding.

Goodnight, everyone.

34 Weeks!

First off, I apologize for the bad picture. I only had a second to snap one before it was time for a feeding, and I couldn't finagle it so that she was facing the mirror. Figuring out how to make that work is more than my brain is capable of right now.

Today marks what would have been 34 weeks of pregnancy for me. Seth was born this week. Evany is already miles ahead of where Seth was when he was born! It's so weird to think that she should still be inside...I really did originally think I would make it until at least 36 weeks.

Obviously, not so much.

Today has been a relatively low key day...Evany has been having a few more episodes of bradycardia (slow heartrate) and apnea (forgetting to breathe momentarily) than usual. Not sure why they're suddenly rearing their ugly heads now, but it's frustrating. And it kind of freaks me out, to tell you the truth.

Soon I (and anyone who wants to be able to care for Evany without me there) will be getting some kind of training in infant CPR and taught how to use the apnea monitor that will come home with her when she does. I'm glad that's happening...I like to be prepared and there's something about a NICU stay that makes you think that you can't take care of the baby without all the high tech equipment. Even though I know I can, every time they hand me a baby and wave goodbye, I wonder what they're thinking. After spending day after day watching the monitors like a hawk it's hard to adjust to an untethered baby.

Okay, this is unrelated, but...Tiger? Seriously? Why do these guys suck so much? Is it that hard to either focus on your wife or at least end your marriage completely before you start dating/sleeping around/whatever you want to call it? Seriously. I hate that this has been all over the news, that kids are seeing this stuff, with Tiger and Jon Gosselin, and growing up with this behavior being typical and unsurprising to them. Hate. Ugh.

Roomie

So Ava got to come up to the hospital with me after school today and she hung out with me in the NICU for about 4 hours.

It was entertaining, to say the least. During Evany's first feeding, she couldn't stop hovering over her and saying "She's so cute! Ahh! She's so cute!"

Then immediately following that feeding, she threw herself over a chair dramatically and said "Look at me! I'm so skinny! I need a snack! From the cafeteria!"

Obviously, it was necessary to go to the cafeteria so that she wouldn't waste away since it was the late hour of 3:30. We headed down and picked out cake and Ava picked out the correct table for us to sit at very carefully, and we sat down and ate and talked. It amazes me what a little person she is now...she can hold actual conversations and she is hilarious. She kept saying "I love when it's just the girls. This is sweet!" (Yes, that saying has stuck around.)

Then we came up and caught up on our Advent book...we had been waiting until December 1st to start reading it, and things have been so crazy that we didn't get to it until today. Then she wanted to rest. For five minutes. Then she was bored, so we turned on Animal Planet, which made her happy.

Of course, that's when Evany woke up early and was being loud, so her nurse came to get me. The unit here is a square, with the baby's rooms on the outside and the nurse's rooms and offices on the inside, with a hall separating the two that runs all the way around the square. Evany's room is one turn away from my room, not quite in sight of one another, and Ava wanted to stay in my room and watch TV, so I walked down to check on Evany.

Who had fallen back asleep, naturally. So I kind of stood outside her room, chatted with the nurses, and watched to see if she was going to wake up again, and Ava came back and forth between both rooms literally 50 times. She wanted to watch TV. Then she would get scared, so she'd come to see us. Then she's get bored, so she'd go back to watch TV. Then she conned one of the nurses out of crayons and coloring books, and that lasted all of five minutes. That's when she discovered that the unit was a square, and that she could walk around and around. And around. So that's what she did. Except she actually skipped rather than walked. And as weird as it sounds, she was having a great time!

Luckily today was a quiet day here and they only had six babies in the NICU, so she wasn't bothering anyone, and the nurses were entertained by her. And one of them said that Ava looks exactly like me! I rarely hear that, so I love that nurse now.

Finally, Evany woke up and had another feeding and then I took Ava home. Overall, though. she was so great and well behaved! It was great to hang out with her one on one.

Speaking of Evany...

She's had a great day. We tried the crib again this morning after the issues she had last night and she held it together today, so she's out of the incubator. Hopefully she can keep it up. She is nursing for every feeding now, and she's off the photo therapy lights. She's also no longer getting fluids or TPN through her IV, so it's hep locked and only used for the antibiotics she gets twice a day. She weighed in tonight at 4 pounds ELEVEN ounces! So she's doing great.

So great, in fact, that tonight, I have a roommate. You could call it an early Christmas present.

I've never been so thrilled to have to share a room! Vivi is doing so great that now, as I'm typing this, she is sleeping in a crib right next to me. She's still being monitored remotely by the nurses, and one of my favorite nurses still comes in to chat regularly, but she's rooming in! What a little Christmas miracle.

Can you tell I'm a little obsessed with Christmas right now? The hospital is decorated to the nines and has Christmas music playing all the time, and I've apparently been infected with Christmas spirit. I can't wait to get home and bake cookies with the kids and actually put lights on the tree. I imagined December would be filled with anxiety over the baby and wondering when she would come and being nervous about her being alive, and instead she's here and thriving and surprising everyone. I love it. I mean, I wish she had been full term, but at the same time, having had a stillbirth, having her out where doctors can treat her feels so much safer than having her inside. Sometimes I feel like my uterus is a death chamber and my babies are lucky to escape it, but that's just me feeling terrible and guilty over Eli, even though it happened so fast there was nothing we could have done.

Okay, I'm going to snuggle my baby girl now. Did I mention she's two feet away?!

Quick prayer request: Evany is having more bradycardic episodes while nursing, and that's a big no no. It's typical of her gestational age, but it will stand in the way of her coming home if they don't stop. And some added prayers that she keeps her temp up would be awesome! Thank you all so much for being so great.

EDITED to add: Bradycardia is a slow heartrate. When Evany is eating, usually, or sometimes sleeping, sometimes her heart will slow down quite a bit. She's also having some issues with apnea, which is basically forgetting to breathe for a little while. Neither are severe, and she usually pops out of it on her own, but we want to see them stop!

Happy (One Week) Birthday, Baby!

Evany Jane turns one week old today. Not until later tonight, but who knows if I'll have time to write then! I can't believe it. This time last Monday I was getting ready to make a paper chain to count down to this coming Wednesday, when the plan was to induce if I had not gone into labor.

And I wasn't going into labor. At all. I kept having short runs of contractions, but they did nothing. Nothing. Then my doctor told me that since I had been under continuous monitoring since I'd gone into the hospital the previous Thursday and was stable, that he was going to have to switch me to intermittent monitoring, meaning I'd be put on the monitors a few times a day, instead of all the time, even though my membranes were ruptured. It was hospital policy, and he'd already pushed it past the normal 24 hours of continuous monitoring.

He asked me if I'd have a problem with that, emotionally, and I said that of course I would...that it would mean that theoretically we could lose her in between monitoring sessions without knowing it, especially since I hadn't been feeling movement since she was out of amniotic fluid, and therefore couldn't do kick counts. I brought up how quickly we lost Eli, and my doctor said that I was right...that he went so fast that theoretically we could have lost him even in the hospital if I had not been on the monitors. He promised me one more day on the monitors and said we'd revisit on Tuesday.

Thank God he gave me that extra day, because within hours, Evany's heartrate started creeping up. I wasn't contracting, and I was only running a temperature of 99. If she hadn't been on the monitor, we would never have known. Because of her heartrate, an ultrasound was ordered, and from that ultrasound they determined that Evany was in pretty serious distress. In fact, my doctor told me that he didn't think she'd make it if we didn't get her out right away. So we did. But those minutes before she came out crying were some of the worst of my life.

I sat on the operating table while the anesthesiologist tried to hurry and get my spinal block in, and a nurse stood in front of me, trying to get the baby on the monitor while we waited to start the surgery. She couldn't find her, which is exactly what happened with Eli. I sat there, praying, feeling relatively sure that I was going to lose another baby, and thought of how ironic it was that I would lose her in an operating room when we were so close to getting her out. I wondered if Eli went through this, too...the racing heart, and what it felt like.

Thankfully, she was still alive, and she was out just about seven minutes later, at 9:22 PM. You all know the story from there...she's done nothing but surpass every expectation anyone had of her. The baby I thought I was losing came out crying, has never needed oxygen, and is exceptionally healthy for a NICU baby. She's tiny, but so alert. In fact, the Neonatologist just knocked on my door to let me know that her ultrasound was completely normal! No brain bleeds, which is huge. Even though she was so early, she is doing better than either one of the boys did when they were in the NICU. A lot better. In fact, it's like comparing apples and oranges.

Sometimes I just can't believe she's here. This pregnancy was so crazy and hard emotionally that I didn't even know how I would feel about my daughter when she was born. Bonding is also really hard with a NICU baby when they take them away before you even get to see them, basically. Luckily, as soon as I was able to get down to see her, I fell completely in love, and now I can't imagine my family without her. I've loved having this week to focus on her and get to know her, since I know that things are going to basically go crazy once she comes home when I have to juggle all four of them.

So Happy one week birthday, Vivi. I'm so sorry you're here so soon, but so thankful that you're surprising us all every day with how strong you are. We all love you so much and can't wait until we're celebrating one of your weekly birthdays at home!

All dressed up with nowhere to go

You can't see them because of her blanket, but this little girl is wearing CLOTHES under there! They're weaning her off the incubator and hopefully soon she will head for the wide open spaces of a crib!

That will make it much easier to get cute pictures of her. Not that she's not cute already, but shooting through the window of an incubator is challenging, at best, and when she's out of the incubator my hands are all tied up in all 4 pounds 9 ounces of baby girl!

Yes, you read that right. Last night Evany hit her birth weight! She's such a superstar.

She's a popular girl...

I am exhausted.

In a good way, of course.

We never in a million years thought Evany would be ready to nurse at this point, and so it has become more imperative that I'm around for her feedings than I had planned for this early on. Of course the nurses can feed her, and they do, and they're great, but she eats better for me, and since she's gone this long without having her feeding tube replaced, I don't want to see it go back in now! Taking all feedings by mouth is one of the discharge criteria.

I've just been overwhelmed and amazed by the support she has received. She's really one blessed little girl. And popular! Evany has had visitors from all over the place! We've had people from church come to meet her, including our pastor, our best friends and neighbors, Ava and Jace, our family that is local to here, and even some family from Indiana (my aunt who flew down to help take care of the kids). And yes, I know the question you've all been asking or dying to ask and no, Evany's Dad has not been one of the visitors. I haven't been ignoring you all, I was just hoping to have a different answer by now.

But last night took the cake. I was feeding Evany her 9 o'clock bottle (she doesn't nurse every single feeding so that we can make sure she's eating a specified amount), when a nurse came in and told me I had visitors. I was expecting my friend Mara, but instead, two of my very best friends from high school (and remember, I went to high school in INDIANA) walked in!

My friend Jeremy had recently moved down to southern Florida for some job opportunity. I don't know what it is because it has something to do with the government so everything's always a secret. Anyway, he's the best man in our other friend, Ben's wedding that's coming up. Apparently Ben flew down to have his bachelor party in Florida with Jeremy. And on a Saturday night, instead of, you know, bachelor partying it up, they decided to drive over five hours to surprise me and meet Evany. Then they took me out to dinner and drove BACK five hours to Ft. Lauderdale last night, because Ben had to fly out this morning. (I wrote they in bold because it apparently wasn't clear that it was dinner with old friends and someone chose to construe it as me going on a date. Just clarifying.)

I was blown away that two guys without kids, who could have been out drinking and doing who knows what else, decided to come visit a baby in the hospital instead. Is that not the coolest thing?

Evany is doing spectacularly right now. None of us want to say that out loud....the nurses here are a little superstitious, it seems. I'm going to get some cute pictures today, I promise!

Anyone need an Evany fix?

I haven't been able to get many pictures of Evany lately. Yesterday I could barely make it down for feedings without falling over or throwing up due to the return of my spinal headache. They promised me there was only a 1% chance of that. As usual, our family gets every small percentage or side effect there is! They repeated the blood patch yesterday afternoon, and although I'm sore from having what basically amounts to an epidural for the fourth time since Evany was born, my head feels much better.

Last night I was able to get some shots of her hanging out after she nursed. She's such a champ. Excuse the IV in her head. It's not very conducive to cute pictures, but they had no choice. She's blown out an IV in both hands and feet now, and they didn't have many options. Hopefully (fingers crossed!) she'll be receiving a PICC line placement today and her head will get a rest.

So remember how I told you who I think Evany looks like? I took a picture of her last night and it immediately rang a bell, but I had to come get on the computer to figure out why. Check out this picture of Evany and one of her brothers while he was still in utero.

I have the pictures larger below so you can see them better, but I wanted you to see them side by side to see how much they resemble one another. The picture on the left is of Evany, and the picture on the right is of Eli when he was actually a little older than her...around 34 weeks. It's one of the last ultrasound pictures we got of him before he passed away. I think they look a LOT alike, and I think that she definitely got Eli's dark hair and nose!

She also resembles the other boys in the family quite a bit, but I see it most strongly with Eli and Seth.

I'm now officially discharged from the hospital as a patient, but I am "bed and breakfasting" it up here for the weekend so that Evany can get lots of nursing time in while I still have great help at home. This afternoon I'm going to head home for a while to hang out with my other children and hope they haven't forgotten all about me!

I need advice from you fellow  C Section ladies. What did you do when you got home and couldn't lift your other kids? Ava and Jace are no issue, but I am seriously racking my brain about what to do about Seth and getting him into his crib and car seat. There are some things we just don't have the luxury of skipping out on, and I will be on my own with the kids some of the time and there is just no way around it. Seth's taking steps, but still nowhere near independently walking. This is frustrating!

I hope everyone has a great afternoon!

What's your thing?

Ava says that everyone is good at something. Everyone has their thing. Some people are good at math, some are good at reading. Some are good soccer players and some are good at crossword puzzles. According to Ava, I'm good at making macaroni and cheese. Personally, her thing is sit ups. I have never seen her do one of these amazing sits ups, but I'm taking her word for it.

Collectively, my kids have always been great nursers. From the get go, every time I would kangaroo Jace in the hospital, he would root and try to get into a nursing position even when he wasn't supposed to be eating. He got so worked up that finally the nurse said "Just let him try...we'll see what happens."

What happened is that he went to town, turned a corner, and ended up going home sooner than we expected because he nursed much better than he took a bottle. Seth was the same way. We struggled to get him to take a bottle in the hospital but he nursed happily, and in fact not long after he got home he began to boycott the bottle entirely, as some of you may remember.

Ava was a great nurser even though I, at the time, was an insane first time mom who literally burst into tears every time she was hungry because nursing was so painful. Who knows what we were doing wrong, but we soldiered through and I cowboyed up and it was all good.

Evany has been taking a bottle since the day after she was born, with miniscule amounts of first formula and, once I recovered from my spinal headache and caught up, now breast milk. She did have a feeding tube in foe any milk she didn't drink by mouth, but she decided she didn't want that in her nose today, so she took it out and no one bothered to replace it. Everyone keeps oohing and ahhing over how well she is doing on the bottle, and I've been pumping like mad to prepare for when her volume goes up. (Right now it's at 12 mLs a feeding)

You can imagine my surprise last night when I walked in and my friend Michelle, who is Evany's nurse, said "Hey! The doctor said you can nurse once a day. Want to try it?!" I had not even begun to THINK about being able to nurse Vivi yet, for several reasons. But there was no way I was going to turn down the chance!

As we got her situated, Michelle said "This is just to check things out. She probably won't latch on, and she might just mess around and fall asleep. That's fine. She's still really little to be nursing and....wow, look at that!"

We both sat there in shock as Evany latched right on and started nursing like she'd been doing it all her life. It was crazy. She nursed consistently for over ten solid minutes, which is huge.. She was sucking and swallowing in a coordinated fashion. She was nursing about ten times better than she takes a bottle.

It was so cool. And she's definitely a McCall baby, because apparently nursing is their thing.

Then we cuddled. It was nice. And of course, by nice I mean "Awesome."