NICU Day 92 ~ (March 8th)

Noelle turned 3 months / 13 weeks old today!!  It is amazing to look back and remember what this day was like only a few months ago and to see where we are now.  So much has happened, and it has been quite the roller coaster; but God has been ever faithful to carry us through and bring us to where we are now with Noelle.  His infinite grace has been so evident and especially overwhelming as we know of other friends/believers who are walking through deep waters right now or others with children who did not experience the same miracle which we experienced.  Sometimes I have wondered "why us?"  "Why did we experience a miracle and these other people did not?"  "What makes us so 'special' to have our circumstances changed for the better?"  But God gently reminds me that even that line of questioning is not correct as it puts the focus back on ourselves and not on Him.  For His own reasons, He has chosen to work His sovereign will in such a way as to grant life to our baby girl.  Ultimately, it is not about us but about Him and His glory; and we are overwhelmingly thankful for how He has chosen to demonstrate His grace in our lives through Noelle.  Even more incredible to me is that this grace, which sustains us through our situation, is also the same grace that carries the believer through tremendous loss and heartache.  I cannot even begin to put it into words but can only stand in awe of God and this truly amazing grace.

We came into Noelle's room today and discovered that she had already been celebrating her birthday with her nurse, Emily, all through the night.  Her whiteboard was decorated by one of the nurses, and they had also been busy making hand prints and snapping photos (even capturing a smile!) to decorate her isolette.  It is such a joy and a comfort to our hearts to have nurses like this taking care of our precious bundle.  We so appreciate the love they show and the fun that they have with our little girl while we cannot be with her. 

Noelle weighed 1,060 grams today (or 2 lbs. 5 oz.).  She seems to be cruising along in her progress, and we are hoping that she keeps up this pace of growth.  As promised, I am including more pictures of her sitting up in her new doll chair.  The chair portion usually sits on a frame...

...but her nurse, Donna (or Aunt Donna as Noelle now calls her), took the little chair seat (which is adjustable in and of itself) off the frame so that it would fit in her isolette, and she could sit up during her wakeful periods.

She is so happy to be able to look around and yet still be able to stay warm.  Plus, it is so cute that it causes all of the people she loves in the NICU to stop by for an extra little visit to see her sitting in her new chair.  All in all, she had a great day and thoroughly enjoyed her birthday.  Thank you for continuing to pray for our little family!!

NICU Day 91 ~ (March 7th)

Today was yet another pretty good day overall for Noelle.  She did have another episode with her tummy last night in which her intestines were dilated full of air.  They had to insert a tube down her throat again and draw some of it out; but thankfully, they did not stop her feeds.  We will not know until she grows more, but it is looking more and more like she will have at least a short visit (if not a longer one) at Baptist before she is able to go home.  While there are some other issues that will be dealt with later in her first couple years of life, intestinal issues are not something they want unsolved before she is home with us.  We are still praying that God will work yet another miracle and solve this without surgery; but we also know that if she needs any sort of procedure that Baptist is the best place to be in such a case.  In the meantime, Noelle seems to have regulated out her amounts and is not taking quite so much food as she was the last two days; but she is still eating more than her minimum requirement, so that is great for her growth.  She now weighs 1,020 grams!!  The 1,000 gram mark is quite the milestone in the NICU, and we are very excited for her to reach it, wave goodbye, and keep on going!!  Translated into pounds, this means she weighs 2 lbs. 4 oz., and she is not so very far from tripling her birth weight.

It's difficult to see in this picture, but if you look closely, you can see that Noelle is sitting up inside her isolette.  One of our nurses was kind of enough to take this picture with her phone as I forgot our camera at home today.  I will get a lot more pictures tomorrow of the entire thing, but I'm thankful to have this picture of her first time in her doll seat.  Because she is getting older, she often has wakeful periods in which she likes to interact more and not just lie down in her bed.   However, we cannot keep her out of her isolette for long periods of time because she gets too cold; so the nurses have looked for and tried several different options of bouncy seats which they have in the NICU but all of them were too large to fit inside her isolette.  Tom and I had the thought the other day to check the doll section at the store and came across a little doll high chair that also converted into a swing and a bassinet.  The full thing was still too large to fit, but one of her other nurses figured out to pop the seat portion off (which is soft and adjustable in and of itself) and just use that inside her isolette.  So Noelle had personal playtime today!  She really enjoyed sitting up and looking around at the pictures we taped inside for her to see while listening to stories on her recorder.  It is such a joy to see her "growing up" and doing normal baby things, even while she is still so tiny.  We cannot thank you enough for your continued prayers and look forward to posting more pictures tomorrow!!

NICU Day 90 ~ (March 6th)

God was very gracious in giving us another great day with Noelle.  Overall it was another "boring" day doing our normal things with her, and we're enjoying watching her change and grow before our eyes.  She is interacting more and more, and I do not think it will be long until she starts purposefully smiling in response to things as she is already doing it a lot just in reflex response to our voices!  Please pray for wisdom for her doctors as they develop a longer term care plan in regard to her intestines.  She has been doing really well the last ten days, and we wonder if she perhaps just needed to grow some more and be consistent with her feeds, but the doctors want to be sure there are no issues before she is ever released to go home (especially since she has had several issues since being born).  We still may have to transfer back to Baptist for some testing and a possible surgery, but we are a few weeks out from any of this, so our prayer is that they could run a test from Forsyth to get the information needed and hopefully (God willing) she will be just fine.  We are so incredibly grateful for the care that she is receiving from all the medical staff.  They go beyond their jobs each day and truly love and care for our daughter.

 
One of Noelle's respiratory therapists, Krystal, came by to visit her today and brought a sweet little knit cap which her mother-in-law had made for Noelle.  It was a perfect fit, and we are especially thankful for all of those who have reached out in so many different ways to show us that they care for us and that they love Noelle.  We feel extremely blessed and undeserving of all that God has poured out on us these past few months.  Never did we imagine what great joy He had in store for us through this trial, and we continue to leave our fears, hopes, desires, and dreams for Noelle in His sovereign and loving hands. 

NICU Day 89 ~ (March 5th)

This was the view I had of my daughter when I arrived at the NICU today...she had wiggled into her hat, creating her very own sleeping mask.  Actually, this is what she looked like for most of the day.  I think today was a growing day as all she did was eat and sleep and had very little wake time (she rarely even opened her eyes to eat).  She is eating a lot right now (I think she is making up for all the times they took her off her feeds!).  Last night, she weighed in at 2 lbs. 3 oz., and we are very interested to see what she weighs tonight after she ate so much today.  Hopefully she will cruise on into the 1100 or 1200 range (in grams).  Overall, today was a very good and boring day, and we really like it like that.  We hope to report the same again tomorrow!  As always, thank you so much for praying for us.  We truly appreciate it!!

NICU Day 88 ~ (March 4th)

We have a little piggy on our hands!!  Actually, it's a great thing.  Noelle is consistently taking more than her minimum requirement for her feeds and even took a full ounce at her feeding this afternoon!!  That is 2 1/2 times her minimum requirement!!  Hopefully we will start seeing this translate into growth very soon.  She currently weighs 970 grams / 2 lbs. 2 oz., and we cannot wait for her to break out of the 900s...she has been hanging here for a couple of weeks now and finally seems to be ready to take another growth spurt.  The main thing (as always) is for her to grow.  One of the other major things she has to do before she comes home is to regulate her body temperature on her own and be able to transition to an open crib.  She just does not have enough body fat right now to maintain her temperature outside of her isolette for long periods of time.  They have been able to wean the temperature on her bed, but she still needs it to stay warm overall.

All in all however, she is doing really well and continuing to "grow up" and act like a term baby.  It's incredibly fun for us to interact with her and watch her respond to us.  She is starting to smile here and there and is also turning into a little cuddle bug (which we LOVE).  It really seems that we are on the homeward stretch, and we could not be more excited.  Thank you so much for continuing to uphold us in prayer...it means more than you will ever know!!

NICU Days 86 & 87 (March 2nd & 3rd)

Noelle has had two really great days back to back and has continued to make "big girl" steps.  Up until yesterday, she was taking 3 or 4 of her feeds a day by bottle; and because she was doing so well they decided to move her on over to "ad lib."  This means that she is to take all of her feeds by bottle.

She has to take a minimum of 12 mls every three hours within a 30 minute time period; but if she wants more than that, she can have it and actually needs to take more than that to go beyond maintaining.  She has done extremely well with it the past two days and usually takes anywhere between 14 and 18 mls.  Taking all of her feeds by bottle is one of the requirements to coming home, so she has just checked that one off the list!!

Her feeding tube came out today, and we were excited to have one less thing attached to her.  It is possible that she could become tired and have to go back and forth again for a little bit, but she has been doing so well across the board with her progress that we think this will stick.  She also has weaned on her oxygen support again which is exciting to us.  Saturdays seem to be a little less crazy in the NICU, so we were able to enjoy some quality time with her and even give her a bath today.

We love spending time with our little girl and getting to do normal parenting things with her.  Thank you for continuing to pray for all of us!!

NICU Day 85 ~ (March 1st)

I cannot believe it is March already!!  Noelle turned 12 weeks old today, and she continues to keep on "growing up" and "being a big girl" (as her nurses like to put it).  For three feedings in a row today, she took her bottle and had normal wake/sleep times.  She also continued to wean on her oxygen flow and is getting so very close to just being on room air.  We're excited to think that possibly in the next couple of weeks, she may discard her feeding tube and cannula entirely!!  Other than that, it was a pretty "boring" day as we just cuddled her and spent time with her.  We're going to keep this short and try to get some rest tonight.  Thanks for continuing to pray!!