I See the Light!

It's there!  It's there!  The light at the end of the tunnel.  And what's at the end of the tunnel?  A tubeless baby!  Yup, that's right!  SHE PASSED SHE PASSED SHE PASSED!!!  I was fully prepared to cry at the swallow study.  And I did but it was tears of joy!  And in case you're not getting how excited I am !!!!!! there's some more exclamation marks!!!!!
I was so excited to see that we got Melanie, our favorite speech therapist.  She has worked with Olivia the most and was almost as thrilled as I was when we got good results.  Melanie set up a plan for us to work Liv up to full feeds.  So, feeding her 30-120 ml's (aka 1-4 oz's) every three hours.  Nectar thick still but we'll work on thins with the feeding therapist.  Baby food is a go.  Keeping the NJ for now.  Sad for me but  Liv's pediatrician is glad for that. He doesn't like NG's.
Olivia seems pretty confidant in herself.  So much so that she passed on Thursday the 29, almost pulled her tube out  Saturday night and then completely pulled it out Monday morning.  Naughty girl.  So the ped decided to let her try without her tube.  She did well but after a few days of insufficient weight gain we did have to replace it.  At the moment we turn it off during the day so she can eat for herself and then turn it on at night to get the missed daytime calories.  So far, her progress is ok.  I don't know what's good and what's not but she'll eat anywhere between 2 and 2.5 ounces at a time.  Sometimes less.  Never more.  I'm still asking Santa for a tubeless baby for Christmas but it may end up having to be a new years resolution instead.  I guess we'll see.
In other happy news, Liv's cardiology appointment on the 30th went well.  Her heart looks better so she's staying on her heart medication to see if it can get even better.  She's down to lasix (a diuretic) once a day and oxygen only at night (YAY!!!!!!!!)  Her squeeze it good other than one spot where the sano was connected but Dr. McCandless said that's normal.  And we don't have to go back until March!
I do have some sad news.  I asked about a Make-a-Wish trip since some of these kids qualify.  But the economy has been hard on them too.  For those heart mom's who'd been asking on the site, Dr. McCandless asked Pat and Pat said the new rules are any kid who's displaying symptoms of their disease, problem, whatever.  So, my sad news is, we won't qualify because Olivia is never going to have symptoms that anything is wrong with her...?  Wishful thinking.  No, we'll say it's faith.  So Andrew will have to save his pennies.