The Perfect Mother's Day Gift?

I'm probably jinxing us by saying this, but it appears that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Laney has four more days of antibiotics, and after that, we may be on our way home. There are a lot of things that are up in the air right now that will have to be resolved, but most of them are relatively minor. It's crazy to think that only two weeks after being put back on the ventilator, we may head out the door.

It's an obvious understatement to say that Laney has made significant progress since being extibated from the ventilator last Monday. As soon as she was extibated, she seems to be a new little girl. She desatted much less frequently on her oxygen saturation. She needed less oxygen through her cannula than she used to need. Her heart rate is 10-20 beats per minute lower. Lots of positive steps forward. The doctors and nurses were encouraged. From there, she has just continued to make steady and quick progress. She hasn't needed a feeding tube for days, but instead takes all of her milk either by breast or by bottle, and she goes back and forth pretty easily (most of the time). This was one of the big steps she needed to take to go home. She has no set amount of food she needs to consume, other than they want to see positive weight gain every day. And every day, she is gaining weight! They removed her caffeine (helps preemies with breathing regulation ) a couple days ago (she was on a minute amount) and she seems to be doing okay without that. She is mostly off the oxygen cannula altogether, except at certain times during deep sleep; hopefully that will only last another day or so.

They are giving her a bunch of her shots at the end of the week (hepatitis and other immunizations), and if she maintains her current milk intake, weight gain, and lack of oxygen needs, we will probably go home then. I can't believe we're saying that, but yes, we may go home next weekend. What a perfect Mother's Day gift that would be.