Hello, this is Mary writing for the first time. We brought Helena home from the hospital last Sunday, which was two weeks ahead of schedule. We are finally full-time parents dealing with regular newborn baby things - eating, sleeping, and changing diapers. We are both exhausted, but Helena is a pretty easy baby. She still has a tube in her nose that goes to her stomach. We give her medications through her tube and initially we fed her through the tube. She has learned how to bottle feed this week, which is also ahead of the doctor's predictions.


She is a very smart baby. Her eyes are very intense and we stare at each other quite often during the day and night--this is what we call "quiet alert." We are so happy to have her home. She is so much more relaxed than she was in the hospital. She is happy to be held and rocked instead of laying in a bed hooked up to beeping machines. I find that I am so busy attending to her every need that when Aaron comes home in the evening I always wonder how I have gotten nothing done all day in terms of house cleaning or homework. And Aaron is always so anxious to hold her and feed her when he gets home.

Mom and Dad came today for a visit (they will be here through Wednesday), and David and Karla came on Thursday night and will leave tomorrow (Sunday). They all have been talking about how she is truly above average!

While she is doing all the normal baby stuff, it is still pretty tense to know that we have to handle her so carefully--for example, we can't let her cry for more than a few minutes because that overworks her heart. We have to be very careful with the risk of infection, so we cannot let too many people touch her or come into contact with too many people--we pretty much stay home! She will be in this fragile condition until after her second surgery, which will take place sometime between December and February (depending on her weight and growth). To move her along toward that goal, we add formula to the breastmilk she drinks to fortify it. Initially she was getting one bottle every three hours on the dot; now we can actually feed her "on demand"--which is becoming more and more regular! She weighs 7 lb 6 oz--which means she has gained an ounce a day since she came home from the hospital.