Avery hits 3 lbs!!

Well...we always knew it would happen...but we had to have a little celebration tonight! It's official, at the weigh-in tonight, our little Avery Ann broke the 3 lb. barrier!! To keep perspective, you've got to go pick something up thats about 3 lbs...and you'll just have a little laugh!! But, we're so happy. Since going back on the fortifier, she's been gaining about an ounce a day. Keep those prayers coming...we have no doubt that that is one of the major factors in her success.

As a note of comic relief... we got a call this week from a number we didn't recognize, so Steph let it go to voice-mail. When she checked it, she started laughing so hard, I couldn't imagine who it was or what was so funny about the message. She let me listen to it...and we both had a good laugh. Here's pretty much what the message said:
"Hi Stephanie, this is Dr. ______'s office (her OB/GYN) calling. It looks like the last time you were in our office was July 31st, so we haven't seen you for your most recent appointment. Please give us a call so that we can have you in for your next check up as soon as possible."
Haha... apparently no one noted in Steph's chart that we left that July 31st appointment and went straight to the hospital, and were rushed up to another hospital to have the baby the next day. We should just schedule that appointment, and show up for it as usual... can you imagine the looks on the nurses faces when a "36 week" Steph comes in for one of her final pre-natal visits!!
Thanks for the comic relief ladies :)

Avery Ann hits the bottle...

Honestly, most father's aren't too excited to hear news like this... but then again, we're not talking about that kind of liquid diet folks!! I called up to get our daily update on Saturday...and out of nowhere, our nurse informed me that our little squirt "PO'ed" a bottle that morning. Not wanting to sound uncool by asking what "po"ing a bottle entailed, I joined the nurse in celebrating this next big step; I mean, it sounded like some karate move... so either way, my daughter is a samurai in training or she's a bottle feeder, both of which makes her dad very proud! "don't make me come up there and PO you mom!"

All joking and martial arts aside, apparently the nurse was feeding Zack, who has been on the bottle for a bit and looked over at Avery going to town on her little binky. She figured, why not give it a try... and Avery just pounded her 20ccs of milk like it was nothing! By the time we showed up, she was sawing logs... apparently bottle-feeding takes it out of you! So, she'll probably start having one of her feedings a day from a bottle. It puts it in perspective when you imagine drinking down a bottle that's nearly the same length as you are! (by the way, PO stands for per os, or "by mouth" in latin...you'll usually hear about patients being NPO, in which case they are given everything through an IV) Her fancy new isolet doesn't have a scale built in to it, which I like better, because they take her out to be weighed... I'll post a video of her being weighed...she weighed 2 lbs 10 oz at that time, but I just called and she packed on another ounce, taking her up to 2 lbs. 11 ozs!! Stephanie swears she can see a double chin developing ;) She is also going on and off of room air again...and when she does have to get on her oxygen, it's only between 10-20 ccs.

The best news for us, is that they have upped our holding times to every other day!! So, we are getting more and more time with the little bug. We make sure to have Steph hold her skin-to-skin every couple times at least... Avery seems to just love it. She just nuzzles up to Steph's chest and falls right to sleep. I love every second that I get to hold her too... I can't begin to describe how amazing it is when you look down at her sweet little face, and she's looking back up at you! We're really blessed that she's doing so well...it's not always the case, and we count every blessing. That's the Avery update... I try to balance between the humorous posts and the mushy gooshy ones, which are more for my emotional sanity...and the real Avery news :) Feel free to ask questions or anything...I've been getting some good emails asking for specifics... Thank you all again for all your great love and support.