Nursing and nursing

We've had a nurse in our house since August 2012 - almost one year!  And as we just learned last week, it seems that one year will be about exactly the duration of our nursing benefit through our insurance.

Ellie will get alot of hours in July to kind of make sure she's ok before we're discharged from the agency, then it's weaned to about half in August and then...no more after 8/31.  Strange to think about!  Even though she's still a handful with her eating and at times a simple cold makes us worry much more than we would with our typical children, the insurance has decided her health is stable enough that her tired, exhausted, bone-weary, frazzled, worn-down, spent, extremely capable parents can care for her.

Speaking of running out of resources...another agency, this one called Mother Nature, has decided Ellie's days of nature's perfect food are quite limited.  Biology has kicked in and after almost 15 months of being Ellie's sole provider of  food, I am only able to provide about one fourth of what she needs daily.

I took the number of days she is old and multiplied it by milliliters she's needed every single day and got the number 325,000. That is hard to understand so I then turned it into ounces and got 10,800.  I remember back in the day of overproducing and sometimes even having to leave hundreds and hundreds of ounces at the hospital, I was sure in the end I was going to reach 10,000 pumped ounces of milk.  Some airplanes fly at this height of feet so I like to think Ellie and I have been flying high for the past 15 months together fueled by love...and lots and lots of milk.