Dear friends and family,

As promised, I've attached some pictures of Allison. Thank you to all of you for your support and notes for our family, we really appreciate it. Allison is doing good - we've had our ups and downs, but she is making progress day by day. Her weight is now 1lb 6oz - lost weight at birth as expected, but is gaining it back. She is starting to be fed 1 ml every 4 hours - 1 ml =literally drops, it's amazing. I had the opportunity to finally hold her yesterday - which was just wonderful. We do "kangaroo care" where they actually put her in my shirt and we cuddle skin to skin. I got to change her diaper yesterday too for the first time. It was like dressing a Barbie doll. We also had her baptized yesterday, so it was quite a day for her.

She has a lot of sweet facial expressions and responds to our voices - it makes my heart just melt. We are spending most of our days at Royal Oak Beaumont. The staff and her nurses have become like second family. We can call and check on her anytime we want and can stay with her as much as we'd like, so that really helps. I can't say enough great things about Beaumont and their staff - truly amazing.

We've been so fortunate to have Matt's parents and my Mom stay with us and help with everything at home - we could not have made it through this first week without them!

Again, thanks to all of you for your well wishes and prayers!

Love, Matt, Nicole and Allison