10 pounds...and lots of bottles

Today Riley is 110 days old, and officially weighed in last night at 10lb 1oz. Wow...I never thought coming into this that we would be bringing home a 10 pound baby! Who knows, maybe she'll be 11 by the time she actually comes home.

The past few days have been pretty exciting for us. They've been trying to bottle feed her at just about every feeding, and slowly she's getting better and better. Today she took about 60% of her feedings completely from the bottle. Breastfeeding is a little slower going, since it isn't as easy to fight her as it is with the bottle. It wears her out quicker so when she has to stop, they finish it with the feeding tube. Once she can make it 24 hours without needing the feeding tube, they will remove it, and if she goes another 24 hours on the bottles/breast then she'll be ready to move out! At that point we'll move to a family care room to spend a night or two with her and after that its home bound. Not sure how long this will take, but my best guess is still "about a week or so".

She passed her hearing test today, but will get a second one in a couple days (they do an additional, more in-depth one with preemies). She is also getting an MRI on her head on Monday or Tuesday, a follow-up from the one she had back in June to check the hemorrhaging she was having. She hasn't had any apnea/bradycardia spells in over 4 days now (a new record for her), so they took her off the caffeine supplements. Her breathing has been really good, but still a little erratic and requiring some slight O2 adjustments here and there.

When Riley does come home, we're pretty certain she won't be in any danger of starving. Pam has been pumping since the birth, and since Riley has been on 50% formula and not even eating as much as Pam was getting, we've been storing a ton of milk. Latest count puts at over 600 (yes, I said 600) bottles of milk (4oz each). So that's around 2500oz of milk. Can someone please tell me how long it will take her to drink all that? Not sure how quickly her intake will increase, so we've been discussing how long we think this would last, even if Pam quit pumping and didn't breast-feed. Just playing devil's advocate here, but I'm curious...

Pam's mom did get her turn to hold Riley on Thursday. Here's a picture of Riley with Grandma Peggy Bearth for the first time...

I'm still learning, and haven't had the luck that Pam has, but here is my first attempt at bottle-feeding Riley. She seems to want to fight me a little more than she does Mommy...I'll get the touch eventually I hope.

Just like most babies, she's still preferring being held to laying in the crib. After just about every feeding, we've been holding her while she goes to sleep. She's gotten big enough we can hold her up on our shoulder now rather than just cradling her. She seems to prefer this, I'm guessing because she is on her stomach which she's always liked better. Here's her with Mommy after getting a full belly.