NICU Day 32 (January 8th)

Noelle is one month old today!!  Some days have been easy, others excruciating, and yet overall the time has gone by incredibly fast.  The NICU is quickly starting to feel like our second home...especially as we really get to know the nurses and other staff that take care of Noelle all the time.  The gratitude in your heart cannot be compared for those who take care of your child in a way that you cannot during that time.  We're so very very thankful for the doctors and nurses who care for her.   Most of them come and check on her when they are working their shift--even if they do not have her themselves that day.  We're allowed to call anytime, day or night to check on her when we are not up there, and we can visit anytime day or night--no restrictions.  So we definitely feel like we live there since we spend more waking hours there than we do anywhere else.  It can be stressful at times (okay, a lot of times!!), but at the same time it's such a comfort for us to be there.  The events that led us to even deliver at that hospital were completely God orchestrated, and that makes it even easier to rest in where He has placed us during this time.  This past week was one of the most difficult yet, and still God was faithful to see us through.  Would He have been less faithful had the circumstances turned out differently?  Not at all.  However, we're thankful for His gracious goodness in our family and for the circumstances in which we now stand with Noelle.  She is still doing well overall--considering the events this past week.  They continued to wean her ventilator settings today, and they also started to wean the nitric oxide she is on for the pulmonary hypertension.  She has tolerated the new settings all day today so they will try more tomorrow.  They were also able to bump up her feeds today, so she is now receiving a whopping two teaspoons per day!!  They will continue to increase this as she tolerates it.  For her size, she should be receiving about 12 teaspoons a day, but they have to work up to this amount so that her stomach gets used to handling that amount and digesting it properly.  They will do another echocardiogram tomorrow to check the function of her heart, so we're hoping to see good progress with that.  Thank you for praising God along with us for how far she has come and continuing to pray along with us for the road she still has to travel. 

NICU Day 31 (January 7th)

Noelle had a pretty uneventful today, and we LOVE those days in the NICU.  She continued to improve with her oxygen saturation and sat between 40 and 50% most of the day.  They started feeding her again this afternoon at a very low rate, and so far she is tolerating it well so they should be able to slowly increase it until she is eating the normal amount for her weight.  Hopefully, she will start gaining weight faster now that she is back on milk again.  Even with the sedation medication still in her system, she was awake and alert for awhile tonight, and we enjoyed getting to do the "normal" things again like taking her temperature and changing her diaper.  She is finally tolerating touch and different positions again although she still does not like to have her temperature taken.  For such a tiny person, she surely can arch that back quite well!!  She definitely has a fighting spirit (which will definitely need guiding later on...but right now, we love it!!).  The weekends are usually more quiet, so hopefully she will get some rest and continue to allow her heart to heal.  Thank you again for continuing in prayer with us!!