When the cat is away.... nothing gets done!

We don't know if all of this is because our insurance case manager is on vacation or not, but it's been such a hassle trying to get authorization for Mia to get transferred!! Before, they said to give them 24 hours to get it all set up, but now they're saying maybe by the weekend they can have the authorizations for us. We'll see!! Marla said the bed is still ours, which is great, so now it's just a matter of time - hopefully it doesn't take too much longer!! We're in a good place, though - Children's Hospital Oakland is great and I basically know everybody who's been taking care of Mia now, so we can't complain! The drive is tiresome at times, but can't complain about that, either. =)

Two nights ago when I called to see how Mia was doing, I was talking to the nurse and I could hear that she was with another baby - possibly feeding little Devin "next door" because there was a lot of grunting going on, but when I asked to see how Mia was doing, nurse Linda said "Well, that's her talking!" I have big eyes, but they must have gotten HUGE because I was completely shocked when I heard it was MIA making all that noise!! She has a little bit of an airleak still, so she was breathing hard enough so air was going past the trach onto her vocal cords so she could make the noise! Linda was holding Mia on her lap so they were facing each other, so they were just chattin' away! =) After I got off the phone, I texted Robert with the number and told him to call to hear Mia, too... he couldn't believe it, either!! =)

I asked one of my dear friends who's a doctor what the cerebellum controls and he said it's basically movements of the arms and legs, motor skills, etc... The MRI that was taken when she was about 3 days old showed that her cerebellum (the back lower part of the brain) is underdeveloped. As most of you know, Mia didn't make any movements or open her eyes for the first 2-3 weeks. You should see her now!!! She's moving so much! Yesterday she did something that I had never seen her do before... She was laying on her right side and she lifted her head so she was looking at the ceiling, then she brought it around to the left side and kept it there for for about 2 minutes! That takes a great deal of neck strength! I'm so glad she's getting stronger! I'm attaching a video so you can see how's she moving now. It's just one arm because she's laying on the other one, but it's still cute! She wasn't moving like this just 3 weeks ago, so it's exciting stuff!!

The sound isn't very loud, but if you can, listen to what Renee says as well as looking at Mia... it's so cute what she does!! =)

I'm going to enclose some pictures from Mother's Day... =) I dressed Mia in a dress for the very first time! She looked so cute. I couldn't just let my baby wear jammies for Mother's Day! Enjoy!