NICU Day 120 ~ (April 17th)

~Enjoying time with Daddy~

Today was a fairly uneventful and boring day as NICU days go, and we are grateful for it.  Noelle has not progressed quite as fast as we thought she would; but she is doing well and making good strides, and we would rather she take them more slowly and do well rather than rush the healing process and consequently have a setback at a later time.  She still was not allowed to eat today; however, by the end of the evening, her bowel sounds were returning which means that things are "waking up" and beginning to work again.  Hopefully this means that we can start feeding her again tomorrow, and we're praying that she tolerates her feeds well.  Since she is currently in the NICU, the surgeon has decided to go ahead and proceed with the Hirschsprung biopsy and put that behind us.  He would have performed it during the surgery she had Saturday night; but pathology does not work on the weekends, and they have to perform some immediate tests on the sample.  Lord willing, in a few weeks we will have an answer to some of our questions.  We were told today that this biopsy is not 100% conclusive and could be repeated again at a later time if issues continue to arise, but we will simply keep taking the information as we receive it and handle it accordingly under the current circumstances. Noelle also weaned well on her oxygen today and my hopes are up that she will be able to come off of it completely before coming home.  If not, then we are happy to keep her on it as long as is necessary, but it would be wonderful for her to come home oxygen free {at least when she is awake!  Some babies need it for a period of time only for sleeping}.  I had the opportunity to hold her for a couple of hours which was a sweet relief after empty arms for the past few days!!  Thank you so much for praying specifically for Noelle and her healing as she seems to be doing well with the pain overall unless moved around too much.  We thank God for another good day and look forward to reporting more progress tomorrow.