Three weeks old - mummy's first cuddle

Sophie is three weeks old today - and would have been 30 weeks if she had stayed put! She has been weighed for the first time since just after she was born, and is now 2lb 4oz, which is great :) It's lovely to see her putting weight on and getting little podgy cheeks. Her feeds are being increased pretty much every day. She has been taken back off the ventilator and put back onto CPAP again but does have to get a funny chin strap on sometimes, to stop her from opening her mouth and letting all the air back out again!

Lovely chin strap....!

Daddy has been going into the hospital every morning before work with the milk delivery, and I've been going up every other day through the week with Alan's dad and/or my parents, and both days at the weekends.

All Sophie's doting grandparents visited her on Thursday and they are all absolutely besotted with her - it's impossible not to be!!

I had a particularly nasty nappy to change on Thursday - I won't go into too much detail but let's just say little Miss Baxter was not very ladylike, had the trots in her nappy and then again when I was taking the nappy off her....and then put her foot in it, literally! It was meant to be my first unsupervised nappy-change but I had to get the nurse to come and help me because she still had various wires attached to her foot so it wasn't just a case of washing her foot!

My first time lifting Sophie

The upside of the trots incident was that Sophie had to get a clean sheet, so I was asked to lift Sophie up while the nurse changed her bedding :) She told me I wasn't allowed to keep telling Sophie to poo just so that I got to do that!!

Sophie's Uncle Michael and Aunty Lesley visited on Saturday and fell in love with their little niece. I had the best surprise ever when I arrived that afternoon and Jane, the nurse, asked if I wanted Sophie out for cuddles!! That was the first time I had ever held her and it was absolutely amazing. Jane put her inside my top so that we had skin to skin contact (or kangaroo care, as it's called) and she was in there for a whole hour. She was soooo snuggly! She cried a tiny little bit when she was first brought out of her incubator, but soon settled down and seemed really content just to snuggle with mummy.

Very first cuddle with mummy - a special moment

Uncle Michael and Aunty Lesley got to stroke her cheek, which they wouldn't have been allowed to do if she was in her incubator. I felt so bad that Alan didn't get a turn at holding her and can't wait for him to get his turn. Jane held Sophie up for me to kiss her cheek for the first time before she went back into her incubator. It was the best afternoon ever!!

Meeting Uncle Michael

We are being allowed so much more to do with Sophie now, and she is really responding to us. You can see the difference when it's Alan or me touching her - she stretches out and wriggles as soon as we touch her and she still loves to grip our fingers or stroke our hands. Daddy has still escaped all nappy changes....

Sophie now has two toys in her incubator to keep her company. I spent ages raking the shops looking for a special toy for her - it's the first thing I have bought for her that is just from me, so I wanted to be really special and it took me a long time to find just the right thing. I ended up getting her a pink Miffy which is the perfect size for her incubator - and it's even better that it's pink! And for Easter, Granny and Grandpa gave her a Peter Rabbit. Let's hope she likes rabbits!