Daycare dilema

So, a couple months ago I lined up the perfect daycare situation for when I go back to work at the end of the month.. There's a woman in town with a son who's 2 months older than Natasha. She quit her job to stay home with him and was looking for another infant to care for to earn some money. She'd babysat as a teenager and did some nanny-ing in college and ran kids programs at a gym. In other words, perfect on paper. Her references gushed about her, and to top it off she was planning on making her own baby food and the little extra Natasha would eat would be no problem.

Well, a week or so ago she totally flaked. Long story short she's moving out of town and I'm back to square one.
Again.
The original plan was for Natasha to go to a small home daycare, which I'd been researching for awhile. But when she was born early her docs said that would be a bad idea for her first year.. her immune system shouldn't be stressed that much until it's had more time to develop.

I really like the idea of Natasha having someone just a little ahead of her to watch him figure things out and help her learn. So I'd been looking at shared nanny situations where a couple families go in on a nanny together. The mom/one kid setup that presented itself was perfect, but apparently not to be.

Finding someone we trust to take care of Natasha every day has been hard. In addition to feeding, changing diapers, and making sure she's safe, it's important that she's played with and cuddled and has attention lavished on her. After talking to many more people, we have a great woman lined up - she's been a nanny for 20 years and has raised 6 happy, healthy, smart daughters (one doctor, and several college grads). The day we met in person she picked up Natasha, who was fussing a bit and immediately calmed her down. It's obvious that the kids she cares for her love her, and all the parents think she's a miracle. We did a little "trial run" where she watched Natasha for several hours, and she was even able to get her to eat from a bottle!

I'm feeling better about the whole situation, and for a little while Dan (who was laid off from work) will be home with her, which I think is great. Though I still can't imagine actually leaving her all day long every day!

If you've sat through that whole rant, you've certainly earned some cute Natasha pix.. here's a couple from bathtime: