January 27 baby update

Jossie continues to do well - she keeps inching along in the right direction. We just need to patiently wait for everything to come together. She continues to have a periodic (and very brief) heartbeat rate drop (about one every 12 hours or so...she just had one today at 3:45 p.m.), which is frustrating. Our doctors could see my frustration at rounds today - I'm sure they were just trying to reassure me, but they told me this heartbeat rate drop is completely normal for preemies and could occur periodically until her due date of March 7. That made my heart sink so low - I really hope we aren't here that long.

Besides these episodes, which are always very brief and she can self-recover from, Jossie is on the up-and-up. She gained two whole ounces yesterday, bringing her weight to 3 lb 11 oz!  She also has been a champ taking her bottle - yesterday, she took 77% of her intake via a bottle (and the rest through her feeding tube). Today, we're doing really well - we even tried nursing briefly and she totally got it. That made me smile - it took me six weeks to learn how to breastfeed Jack; with Joss, it took about six seconds.

It was bathtime today, which she didn't love but what newborn does? Her pacifier helped to soothe.

And then she was all clean, in her new outfit from our friend Emily:

We have a wonderful nurse today - she's on duty Friday and then Sunday through Wednesday of next week. I'm hoping we have her all of those days.