Sunday 19th December

Not a bad Sunday really. It started well, with another pleasing overnight report. Only Stanley was playing up slightly, with his saturation fluctuation. Willow was pretty stable all the way through.

There was a major breakthrough today in the cot by the window. We decided to give Willow a go with feeding breast milk from the bottle. It's been a bit of a struggle trying directly from source, with both babies dropping their sats, stopping breathing and changing a navy blue colour during every attempt. Ideally, of course, Leela would be happily wandering around with a baby on each breast, feeding merrily away. But ideally, the babies wouldn't have been born at 26 weeks, without any ante-natal steroids, and been ventilated for two months. If we go down the purely breast-feeding route, it will be at least March by the time we're out of NICU, and that's not going to be good for anyone. They'll still be getting breast milk, just out of a bottle instead. By the time we get out of here they'll probably be on solids anyway.

So, Willow gulped down 40 ml in about two minutes on attempt number one. It was another one of those rare, precious moments where Leela really felt like a mother; being able to feed her like that while she was gazing up at her, followed by her first burping session. She hasn't quite got the Senior burp nailed just yet; but there's definitely a few people around who could give her some pointers, especially at this time of year.

I tried feeding Stanley with a bottle a bit later on, but he wasn't having any of it. He was concentrating too much on his Sunday afternoon snooze, so we'll try that again tomorrow.

Another big moment for Willow today was that she was the first baby in Poole to try a different type of ventilation. Rather than CPAP, which she was on when resting her lungs while not on the nasal prongs, she will now be using high-flow nasal cannula. This is used in other hospitals around the country and they are trialling it here. It does the same job as CPAP - maintaining a continuous positive airflow to the lungs - but without the nasty mask squashing her face. Hopefully she'll get on with this a bit better.

So, we're into the last week before Christmas, and we've never felt so un-Christmassy before. Every day will still be the same as the last, no matter what else is going on outside. But at least the days are slowly becoming easier, and the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter.