Jilly the RoCkStAr

We are 5 days post-op and Jilly is doing amazing! We are so proud of our little rockstar :)
Yesterday for Christmas she got 3 of her 4 chest tubes out (along with a zoo of stuffed animals to keep her company in her isolette!) and continued to get stronger and show the doctors and nurses who's boss ;) Her morphine and dopamine drips were turned off. She began getting a small amount of breast milk through a feeding tube and all of her numbers and vital signs looked great :) Oli and Athan gave her two girl superheros to put in her room to keep watch over her. Really, though, we know that the three of them are the superheros for being so strong throughout all of this.
Today was an even bigger day- her 4th chest tube was taken out and she was taken off of her ventilator. She has been breathing on her own and doing fantastic for about 4 hours now. With a little luck I might even  be able to hold her tonight for the first time in 5 days :) She has also been moved from an isolette to a hospital crib, which has been given quite the girly girl, princessy feel thanks to a nice, big soft pink blanky draped over the top like a canopy. 
Over the last few days her swelling has gone down a ton- she's finally beginning to look like the baby she was before surgery. Even her incision looks good :)
Jilly's favorite nurse, Gillian, says she is doing better than a lot of babies who go through this same surgery. She seems to be tolerating the surgery and the recovery pretty well, so even though this is terribly hard on us, we are cautiously optimistic for the days and weeks ahead.