NICU Day 6 (December 13th)

My mom did a wonderful job posting updates these past few days--she's incredible with the medical details, and I'm not sure I'll be able to communicate all of that as well, but we will do our best. Noelle is in stable condition today. The doctors still are not allowing her feedings to proceed due to ...the air in her intestines, but it does seem to be moving through so that is a good sign. Hopefully her x-ray tomorrow will show more improvement, and once that clears up and the discoloration seen on her tummy is gone, they will again resume feeding her and monitoring how she tolerates it. She received a platelet transfusion today as those were low, but her blood sugar and blood pressure were good today. She is still jaundiced a bit, but they have her down to one light (instead of the 2 she originally had) and hopefully will be done with that sometime tomorrow or Thursday. We were able to spend quite a bit of time this afternoon holding her in our hands without the blue light and her glasses on her face. She was very responsive to us and opened her eyes a lot and squeezed our fingers. She appears to have blonde hair!! Under the blue light, we always thought it was dark, but looking at it today in the real light, it is a soft blonde color along with her eyebrows and tiny tiny white eyelashes!! She has her daddy's nose and daddy's toes too. It's amazing to see such incredible details in her even as tiny as she is. I am home now, and we are adjusting to a new schedule and figuring out how to adapt to this new life...but we are ever grateful to God to be here. A few weeks ago, we thought we would be delivering our daughter stillborn at about this time. Today, she is living and while we have an incredibly long road to walk, we are so thankful for each hour, each day that we have with her. She truly is our Christmas miracle. Thank you so much for your continued prayers and love for all of us. It is incredibly encouraging to us--especially on those roller coaster days in the NICU. We thank God for all of you!!