Maybe This Week

Thomas writing.

So another week has gone by and Whitney is still in the hospital. She has been feeding very well. In fact, she's fed so well, that we can't really see any reason why to keep her at the hospital longer. She's been needing to feed at least 90 mL every 4 hours by bottle, and she has taken at least that if not more for the past 2 or 3 days straight. So we are expecting to have Whitney home this week. We've discovered that the only reason that Whitney may not have taken the full 90 mL before was because some nurses that took care of her would quit trying to feed her after 30 minutes, they would simply give up on Whitney early because they were too busy with taking care of other babies in the NICU. Our weekend nurses (both day and night nurses) are very experienced and have been excellent and understand that Whitney may need a little more time than 30 minutes to be able to finish her bottle. So the weekend nurses say they will make sure that the weekday nurses and doctors understand this so that they don't quit on Whitney prematurely.

We're starting to be able to play with baby Whitney! And I mean actual playtime, where we're not just looking at her in her crib and commenting about how cute she is, but rather taking her out of the crib, putting her on blankets on the ground and having some real interactive hands on playtime. She's getting tummy time and stretching excercises, too. Whitney is starting to be able to hold her own head up by herself as well and looks around. I just noticed that she was able to do this yesterday!

My parents came over yesterday and were finally able to hold Whitney in their arms. We let Alicia's parents hold Whitney a couple weeks ago, and have been wanting my parents to get to hold her as well, but every time they came over, Whitney was sleeping. We don't bother Whitney when she's sleeping because she needs the energy to be able to take a full feeding.

With Grandma and Grandpa Holmgren.




With Grandma and Grandpa Patterson.




Whitney holding onto her bottle as she eats her food.




Whitney on the floor doing some tummy time.




Daddy and uncle Clayton playing with Whitney on the floor.




Eating a delicious cupcake!




The young "Achievement Day Girls" (under age 12 girls) in our church held a fundraising event call "Cupcakes for Whitney", selling cupcakes for $1 each to help us cover some of the costs associated with Whitney being in the NICU. They did an excellent job and their efforts and contributions are yet another prayer answered to our small family.




Whitney in her Boppy pillow!




Here's a shot right after we got Whitney's hair wet and matted it down.