Recovery: Day #5

Claire is blowing the socks off of everyone! Because she has both Hirschprung's Disease and Down syndrome, she was expected to take longer to recover from the surgery as well as significantly longer to learn how to eat ... this has not been the case.  She did so well with eating yesterday that they have allowed her to eat completely on-demand today and she is already almost fully weaned off of her supplemental IV nutrition! Everyone is amazed at how fast she is progressing. Because she is now eating and burning calories, she was also able to maintain her body temperature on her own today and so we were able to move her from the warmer to a CRIB! So many changes in the last two days.

The speech therapist also came by today to do some feeding therapy. Because of her low muscle tone, I had to learn a special way to hold/feed her so that she doesn't aspirate while eating (in a regular eating position, she is unable to swallow properly due to her tone and coordination). It is taking some getting used to but she has done great! We are still not sure if I will be able to breastfeed her without pumping/bottle feeding because of the very specific position that she has to eat in but we are taking things one day at a time and the important thing is, she is EATING [and pooping]! It is beginning to look like we may get to go home this week which is a significant improvement from the original estimate of 2-3 weeks post-surgery. We could not be happier or more proud of our sweet girl!