Pictures from the last week

This is last Sat. She was really excited to have her Dad there.

This is her crib in her hospital room. It was just like the one in the NICU.

This was our side of the semi-private room. Luckily we had the window side. The bench in front of the window is where I slept. We had a great view of Forest Park, and sunsets every evening.

Her bottom two teeth came in while we were there. This is her chewing on anything she could get her hands on. This is one of the cords from her monitor. The paper bag on the bed was what our dinner came in. She thought is was a fun toy.

This is how you take a nap with loud room mates. We went through 4 different loud baby's in 5 days. Each one seemed to cry louder and longer than the one before. Elise eventually got used to them, but I never did. Eventually we had the room to ourself, which made the stay 100% better.

This was pretty cute. This panda was given to her by the hospital, and she fell in love with it. She actually fell asleep with it on her face, and her hand on her aquarium. You can see how we brought a lot of her toys to keep her entertained and make it feel like home.

This was a balloon given to her from one of her favorite NICU nurses Nicole. She thought it was the best toy! When it was newly inflated it made a great drum, and after a week, it was really loud and crinkly. The gift shop at the hospital let me re inflate it for free. I thought that was pretty cool.

This was the day before her surgery. Speech therapy told us to let her play with her food, so here she is playing with her food!

She loved to recline on my pillows and play in her crib.

Such a doll.

Ok, this was after she woke up from surgery. She pretty much slept the whole day after getting out of surgery on Monday, but was awake for a short period Monday night. Luckily they moved our room mate out after we got back from surgery and she was able to get some rest. You can see what I meant by heartbreaking.

This was Tuesday after taking her NG tube out at about 2pm. She woke up that day with a smile. It was good to see her almost back to her self again. Although she still had pain when moving or coughing.

Here she is reclined again with all the toys I brought for her. She pretty much got what she wanted that day.

She has found her feet recently, but finds it hard to get them to her mouth due to her chunkiness. So the pulse ox's on her feet made this easier for her.

I just love this picture. I think it's my favorite of all time. This was Wed eve, I had her playing on the window seat. She is chewing on her puke bucket.

This is that same day. Our friend Zac came to visit.

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So that is Elise's hospital story in pictures (at least from Saturday on). We came home Thursday eve, and she was cautiously happy about being home. It took her a few minutes to remember where she was, but was happy to sleep in her own crib. She now has 6 teeth, and her smile is even cuter without tape on her face. She seems to be trying to be more mobile by really leaning for things, and trying to grab everything in site. We can't do tummy time with her for awhile until her surgery site is healed, so it will be interesting to see how she is going to become mobile. We won't have to go back to STL until late Feb for her heart cath and surgery follow up. We are glad to be home and settling back into a familiar routine. I will post again on Monday, I hope you all enjoy your weekend. Love, Kristin