Free as a bird

Lela is out in the open air bin! They switched her over in the wee hours of this morning and she has been out all day and is regulating her own temperature well. As you can see, she has a few blankets to assist in that effort.

Dr. Baer again told us that if Lela continues to do well this weekend, she could be discharged by "early next week" !!!!! I have been frantically cleaning and washing and organizing and obsessively adding to my to-do list all day in anticipation that I have a baby living at home sometime in the next several days. I'm also a little freaked out, to be honest, about the timing. Babak starts a tough cardiac rotation on Monday and he's going to be going into work at the crack of dawn (maybe he can fit in one of the middle of the night feedings as he wakes up?). Babak's parents are away on vacation next week and my parents are also tied up and can't visit. That leaves me alone for long stretches of time with a newborn. It's funny how intimidated I am by a three pound baby.

Of course, I'm much more comfortable than I was in the beginning when I was terrified of changing her diaper for fear of breaking her. One of the nice things about the NICU is that we got a lot of baby practice without actually having responsibility for the baby's entire welfare. I am now pretty comfortable changing diapers, swaddling, changing clothes, taking temperature, holding, moving, burping and feeding a teeny tiny squirmy baby. We also have the chance to ask the nurses a million questions and to see first hand how the experienced NICU nurses handle the baby. I went to the NICU discharge class today after Lela's morning feeding, and the nurse taught us some basics (which were not necessarily basic to me) like how to warm up frozen breast milk and how to clean the umbilical cord, etc. So, I guess I'm much more confident now than I would have been if I took home my baby after a mere day or two in the hospital. We'll see how that confidence holds up when Miss Lela and I are alone together.

See? Lela's a little worried, too:

Don't worry sweetheart. I'm pretty sure I won't break you.