See Saw

So on Wednesday the dr in charge of Josie told us that she is doing great, right where she needs to be...but it will be a few weeks before she can go home.  I was slightly shocked.  Many people (none of whom were doctors) said she'd only need a few weeks total.  We were aready a week and a half into her NICU stay.  I adjusted, as I have to, and dropped all hope that Josie would be home for Thanksgiving.  Then on Friday morning, that same doctor, told us to get the house ready because she would be coming home within the week!  What!?  I don't understand!  For 10 days they told us nothing about when she might be home other than sometime around her due date.  I don't know what to believe. We both got a little excited at the thought that she could be home in a week.  I asked our nurse what she thought when we returned last night.   She said not to get our hopes up.  We're just riding on a see-saw.  Up and down, up and down, up and down...

Today Josephine is 35 weeks.  I think that is a good thing. She's gaining weight, breastfeeding pretty well, her bed temperature is steadily being lowered and she's taking the occasional bottle for the nurses.  We need to work on that one.  Last night we had a typical new parent experience.  During her 5:00 feeding Miss Josephine did quite a number in her diaper(she can't take all the credit, the nurse did give her a stool softener).  Daddy took her because he's the diaper dude.  I followed because I had a feeling this was going to be interesting. As I thought, it was a big mess for such a little girl!  Daddy slipped a new diaper under her first, and opened the messy one-probably a little grateful she was in an incubator.  As he was reaching for the wipes our beautiful little daughter apparently wasn't done.  She then finished her business all over her daddy's hand!  And her bed, and some of her cords.  I don't think the nurses are accustomed to hearing such laughter in the NICU. We couldn't help it. Miss thing had such a satisfied grin on her face.  I wish I had a picture or video of this but I wasn't out of the danger zone and this was a two person clean up job.  Hopefully we both learned our lesson and won't make this messy mistake in our house!

So innocent!