**Meg**

tidetravel

Any updates about your new niece?

megk8oz

Oh, thanks for checking up!  She's actually doing pretty good, all things considered. My sister came home yesterday, so leaving the little one behind really was a downer on everybody, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But my sister is allowed to see her 24/7 and my family is allowed any time during visiting hours, so we're working out a schedule where at least one of us visits her everyday.

I've been kind of busy the past couple of days and my work schedule is a little weird trying to shuffle around visiting hours (The hospital is an hour drive both ways), but I got to see her again yesterday.

I still don't have pics ... which is my fault. They don't allow cell phones in the NICU, and like a dope, I keep forgetting my camera ... but she's so precious looking. Her facial features aren't clearly defined yet, but I have very strong feeling she's going to look a lot like her big sister. She already has perfect little fingers and toes ... they don't even look real. For a split second, she actually opened her eyes while I was there ... couldn't tell what color they looked like, but she definitely had them open for a moment. It had to be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.

She doesn't have fully developed veins yet (I never thought about things like this before), so her feeding tube and all of her blood work is currently getting done through her belly button, poor thing. But she's doing really good right now with her lungs, she doesn't need to be on oxygen when she's awake (They said that might change over the next few weeks as they develope more, but not to worry too much if it has to happen). And even though she was in the incubator all sealed up, at one point she started crying, and I could hear her through the glass, so she seems pretty strong to me.

The one thing that really sucks is right now when we visit, unless a doctor or nurse is in the process of handling her, nobody's allowed to touch her at all. Right now, she's maintaining her weight, but they said any type of touching could cause her to start moving or shifting, which will lead to her burning calories, and they don't want that happening. My timing is always off, so I still haven't had a chance to hold her little hand or anything ... although, from how tiny it is, I might be afraid to anyway. 

They gave me one of the little diapers that she uses, and omg, I had dolls that wore bigger diapers than this. It seriously is the size of a maxi pad!

Oh, and family update. My sister decided to go with Claire for a middle name (It's kind of a "family" name, pretty much Sophia and I are the only women in my family who don't have it or some version of it in our names), and unless something's changed in the last 24 hours, this baby has my sister's last name. She was having a great debate over it, since Sophia has Mr. Baby Daddy's last name, and she didn't want them to be different, but last I heard she decided that since the whole thing has to go to court for things like visitation and child support anyway, she's going to just go through the pain in the butt process of changing Sophia's name while she's at it.

... I think that's everything for now, lol.

Licia&Wayne

Wow, Meg. I'm so glad she's doing well. I hope she just keeps getting bigger and stronger every day and hopefully you'll get to hold her soon! It sounds like she's in good hands right now.

megk8oz

Licia, we really couldn't have gotten luckier in this situation.

A few weeks back there were some discrepencies with her sonograms at my sister's original hospital/OBGYN-somebody misread them and somehow determined the baby was on the brink of kidney failure, she then was immediately transferred over to her current hospital because they had a better NICU and they were convinced that she would need to have labor induced ASAP.

It turned out that the baby was fine (Still not sure how the mistake was made) ... but then cut to last Sunday, and my sister wound up just going into labor. But thanks to the sonogram mistake the baby was born in one of the best hospitals for preemies in the state (Instead of being born elsewhere and having to possibly be transported).

emilyinchile

Meg, I'm so glad to hear she's doing well! And that's kind of crazy about the hospital switch...definitely a lucky break.

saxy414

I'm glad she's doing well.  Hopefully she keeps getting bigger and stronger and you can hold that little hand soon :-)