Lucy is doing fantastic (finally!)...

The picture above was taken last night and the picture below was from the afternoon. On Sunday, Lucy was still pretty sick and was retaining a lot of fluid again. She was put on blood pressure medication and it made a huge difference. By Monday, she looked like a new baby -losing most of her puffiness and fluid - and much more content. As the morphine left her body she started to move around a lot more, kicking and squirming. One nurse commented that she was like a "wild woman" inside her isolette! This was a Lucy we hadn't seen for a week and a half and we were so glad to have her back! But the best news of all was that her needs for ventilation greatly decreased from Sunday to Monday. I went in to the hospital yesterday hoping that she would be moved from the ossilator to the conventional ventilator but as I entered the door, I saw that the respiratory techs were putting the aladdin cap on Lucy! This means she is doing all her breathing on her own with the cap helping her with oxygen and extra pressure. This is huge and fantastic step! As of this morning, she remains on the cap and is doing great.
As you can see in the pictures of Lucy, you can see that the girls are now being dressed in clothes. Ella was the first to have a sleeper. On Sunday night, Ella got another bath and a new isolette. Her nurse decked it out for Halloween as you can see by all the orange. Ella's sleeper also has pumpkins on it. It was pretty exciting to see her all dressed up! She is doing super well with her feeding, now up to 14mL every two hours - and is now at about 2lbs5ounces!
Here is my mom with Ella. Yesterday, Ella was on low flow oxygen for about half an hour. That type of oxygen is what you often see people with respiratory disease using to aid with their breathing. It is just two small prongs in her nostrils that delivers oxygen but no pressure. That is the next step which they will continue to try Ella on for a while each day until eventually she doesn't need the cap.
Her dress is a little knitted dress that someone donated to the NICU. One of the doctors found it and wondered if it would fit any baby and the nurses nominated Ella. They are sending it home with her so that she can use it with her dolls someday.