Week 3

All good news this week! Eliza is getting extra calories with her feedings and she's been handling it very well. This evening she weighed in at 3 lb 3 oz. She's a regular Paul Bunyan! Here's hoping she keeps it up. She's still on very low oxygen flow and she wasn't under the lights at all this week. So she's doing very well. Every time we go in to see her she is just snuggled up like a papoose, and we feel bad about waking her up to take her temperature and change her diaper. But it's such a pleasure to see her wide open eyes and watch her stretch and wiggle around.


Tonight she had pulled the little oxygen tubes completely out of her nose and was breathing wholly unaided when I arrived. I don't know how long she had been like that but her oxygen level was exactly where it needed to be and the nurse (who is a very good nurse) was surprised to learn that the tubes weren't even in her nose. She was impressed with Eliza's lungs and we agreed that she is getting closer to the time when the tubes will be removed permanently. Every day we're getting a little nearer to her coming home.


As a side note about the hospital, we've really enjoyed getting to know Eliza's two "roommates" and their parents. Eliza is in a co-ed dorm with Sophia and Preston. They will both probably go home in the next three weeks or so, so they're a bit ahead of Eliza, but it's been fun to share the joys of seeing our children progress with those parents. It's comforting to be able to share experiences and realize that they know exactly what the difficulties are. In fact, both of them have had a far rougher time than we've had. Sophia was born at 26 weeks and weighed only 1 lb 8 oz. while Preston was born in a rural area at 31 weeks, but had no high tech equipment to monitor him and keep his lungs going, etc. Both sets of parents have had some stressful times over the last few months and we are so impressed with how they have handled everything. We're enjoying becoming part of that little community and are glad to have friends we can cheer for as their children do well.


At home Brenna is making great progress. She's been driving for the past few days and will make her first solo trip to the hospital tomorrow. That's a huge jump from where she was last week. She still gets worn out a lot more quickly than she used to, but every day is getting better. She tries to limit her trips up and down stairs, but she has resumed her role as boss, and the children are loving having mommy up and functioning. I'm pretty happy about it, too :-)


My oldest sister was in town for the past week and she did a great job of fitting right in and helping us wherever help was needed. Thanks, Aunt Jeanne, for your love and your willingness to help. We love you for it. And, thanks to the Cushings for letting us borrow their mom. We have been so fortunate to have family members willing to come out and help. What a huge difference that has made. We're so far in people's debt that we'll never be able to make it up, but the comforting thing is that we know people simply do it out of the goodness of their hearts. I was telling Preston's mom tonight that we read so many terrible things in the newspaper and see so many dreadful things on the news about what people do to each other, but my life's experiences have taught me just the opposite. There are so many good people who want to help and take care of others. People from all walks of life--we're all just people and kindness is something everyone can understand.


Anyway, enough verbiage. For this week just a few photos to share. Thanks everyone for your continued prayers and support. We know there are heavenly forces at work here.




Week 3 close up. We really enjoy the time we have with her when her eyes are open and she is looking around.





Here is Eliza's space--basically just her condo. When we come for a visit they bring in a glider (or two) for us to sit in. And that is how we spend our time with her.




Here's the first photo of all three of us. I'm looking forward to the first photo of all six (!) of us. That will be a very fun day.