That is great to hear about Angel!! She is so beautiful and strong, what a fighter, just like her momma!!

I'm so pleased that your little angel is getting stronger each day. I love reading these updates and seeing how she's doing.

"But she has been diagnosed with stage 2 ROP or Retinopathy of Prematurity. Basically she has extra blood vessels growing where they shouldn't be. Theres more to it but I can't remember lol. There's a possiblity of the retina pulling away and causing blindness. Luckly she's low on the scale of 1-5. They are going to keep a close eye on it. If it progresses then they will probably do a laser eye surgery to stop the vessels from growing anymore. So i'm a little bit worried about it. Im hoping though that as she matures it will correct itself. "

Hi Steph, you are probably bored with us saying this but Angel , born at 24 weeks and 5 days and weighing 1 lb 9 oz, both exactly the same as our Charlotte born last July, is following pretty much the same path and experiencing much the same issues from the PDA (Heart Murmur) through to your Angel coming off CPAP at the same number of weeks after birth as her.

Almost every baby born at 24 weeks suffers from ROP but in 99% of cases it corrects itself. We were very worried when she was diagnosed with Level 2 ROP 7 weeks after birth i.e. at 31 weeks and she was seen by an eye specialist every 2 weeks until she was finally given the all clear on the 12th December 2007, just over 7 weeks after she came home and six weeks after she she should have been born. We were only worried because we had no idea what it really meant.

Charlotte initially got a little worse in September and was then pretty much static until end November when over the space of 3/4 weeks it resolved itself.Level 1-3 will ROP will correct itself over time without Surgery, level 4 can be rectified by laser surgery, there will only be longterm problems if it gets to level 5.

We have been following Angel's progress and she has been doing better than Charlotte back then and she has gone from 1 lb 5 oz at her lowest to 9 lb 3 oz as weighed by the nurse last Friday.She is our miracle as the Doctors gave her 1% chance of survival as she had complications from birth.

all the best Alasdair, Samantha and Charlotte

Thank you Ali your knowledge is very much appreciated in here. I've been reading up on the ROP and although it's probably nothing to be too worried about it still scares me a little. I am after all Mom
But your little charlotte is doing just amazing after everything she's been through. She's such a strong little girl and it's so admirable.
I can't wait until angel is 9lbs Shes almost 3 lbs which is def something for us to celebrate here. She's halfway to coming home!!! She's taking so much milk now i'm worried they are going to run out. I am now pumping every 2 hours so that I can get them stocked up again...

A few days ago, our local news aired a report on a little girl born at 25 weeks. She's now 9 months and doing really, really well. I couldn't help but think of you! My partner and I talk about you guys quite often and make sure to keep up with Angel's progress

So this little girl was nearly just like other little babies her age. She has some catching up to do in regards to motor skills but nothing alarming. Time will make everything fine, they said. She gets some stimulation from her parents which helps alot. She has medication to help her immune system which is temporary. It was sooo amazing to see this little girl do so well I just wish you'd seen it! (I tried finding a clip on the web without success...)

I hope this encourages you and confirms that slowly but surely everything will just fall into place so that you can enjoy having Angelynn at home.

Glad to hear she is doing so well and gettign stronger everyday TurboMom!! Goodness your due date is almost here, time is flying by hope she will be going home soon

Hi Steph, Glad we can be of help. Believe me ,the time will go very quickly and Angel will be home before you know it. It is hard to believe Charlotte spent 14 weeks in NICU/SCBU and has now been home nearly 10 weeks.
We really don't know where the weeks have gone.

She came home 1 week before her due date at 5 lbs 6 oz so it is looking good for Angel to be home before hers. We call her Piglet Low now as she is very greedy and has been having 650-750 ml of milk a day, often as much as 150 ml in one session, so we just decided to wean her early on baby rice last week.

LOL wow yeah you definitely have a litle piglet. I have a feeling angel will be too..But it's definitely a good thing cause she's getting big and strong

The thought of her coming home is so surreal to me right now. I'm so used to her being in the NICU it's almost like thats where she belongs so when she comes home it's just going to feel weird (but great)
Theres a few new pics on my site here at the bottom. Also here's a video of her eating her first bottle

Pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/stephybean1112/Angelynn

Video (PG warning u might see some boobage I am sorry for that LMAO)

she's looking fabulous Well done Angel, you got a real little fighter there x

Aw, shes doing so good! It seems like she has really grown a lot! I'm so happy to see shes doing so well!