Praises...

Today Alegria weighed 8 lbs 4 oz! She is now as big or bigger than 3 of her siblings were at birth :) She has gained 2 lbs already which is really wonderful considering many babies with cleft lips/palates fail to thrive and have trouble gaining weight.

We are making slow progress with the obturator. I am trying to work with her on the bottle for about 10 minutes each feeding before gavaging her. She did well this morning at least tolerating the bottle in her mouth which is better than yesterday. She still is working on learning to actually suck AND swallow with the obturator in. Often times she chokes a little on the milk instead of swallowing it. This afternoon's feeding did not go as well. She cried or screamed almost the entirety of the feeding both bottle and gavage, so I took out the obturator for a few hours to let her relax some. I am certainly learning a lot of patience in this process, but I am thankful to see her making progress (even if it is slow).

We also have internet again! I thought our network card was fried on the desktop, but I was thankful to find that it just needed to be disconnected and reset. I am very thankful to have internet access again! It has been such a blessing and encouragement to me during these challenging times!

Jill