Celebrations and hard work ahead

Doug and I celebrated Grace's one week birthday with some cake and champagne. It is hard to believe she is already going to be 9 days old later today! She continues to maintain her temperature in a crib, loves her baths, and has gotten much of that fetal flexion positioning back. As of 3 am this morning, she finished up feeding pathway x4; that means she was able to do 4 feeds to the time required within 24 hours. So as of 9 am today, we start on x5. Sleep, hydration, and rest are going to be paramount, so I have moved back into the hospital. There is just no reason to go home at 10 pm at night to return at 2. Hopefully it'll mean we get to take her home sooner rather than later.
Another wonderful thing that is contributing to her success is the fact that Maleia's rate of milk production increased yesterday afternoon to 500 ml in a 24 period. This drops her feeding time requirement to 10 minutes from 20, as it is assumed she is getting more milk in each sitting. Yahoo! That means much less work for Mommy in keeping her awake and working. And 20 minutes is very hard for a premie, let alone a fully developed newborn!
Earthly angels start arriving this weekend in the form of grandmothers. Maleia's mom Susan will get here on Saturday and start prepping the house for Grace's homecoming. Doug's mother Patty will arrive the following Saturday. They each get to stay for a week and will be enormously helpful. Not much of the nursery was done when I went into labor. I had just done two loads of laundry of baby clothes and they ended up sitting in the dryer for 4 days while I was in the hospital. Luckily Doug, his Dad, and Uncle Adam had put the crib and baby furniture together the weekend prior. I was at the car seat installation facility on the Saturday when my water was leaking. We are getting by by the skin of our teeth, but realize that all babies really need when they come home are love, food, warmth, clean diapers, a place to sleep, and a car seat. So really, we are as ready as we need to be!