Riley is Home!!!

Riley has finally made her journey out of the NICU. She has been such a trooper and continues to finish all of her feeds by mouth. Last night I stayed the night at the NICU and nested with Riley. We attempted our first breast feeding session and she did well at the breast but I think I need a nipple shield to help her little mouth latch on. It felt so good to have my baby latched to my breast and get the milk directly from me. Now I didn't get much sleep as you can imagine when you are pumping and feeding a preemie. I would wake up, pump, then feed Riley for 30 minutes and clean up. If I was lucky I would get 2 hours of sleep before I needed to do it again. Surprisingly, I have been fairly awake all day even though I got little sleep. I think I am just on a high because I finally have one of my babies home.

My parents came up to the NICU and took a bunch of pictures of her and video taped her getting dressed, going into her car seat and her journey out of the hospital. They even filmed us coming home and bringing her into the house. She will have many memories to look back on. We plan on doing the same thing with Addison once she is able to come home.

The plan now is to get into some sort of routine and find out what Riley likes and what she doesn't. She has been eating well since she got home and we may need to increase her feedings because she has looked for more milk after she is done feeding. I bet she is just trying to get used to her new environment. It is such a different world to make all the decisions about her care rather than waiting on the nurses to do make the decisions.