Pray for Poop

Apparently that is all Sara needs to do well to come home. Pray in flows in abundance today. She is eating well, the shunt is fine, all is well except needs to move some merchandise. The bowel sounds are fine so pray she presents a sweet smelling aroma and sacrifice for the gods in white coats. Pray also for Jennifer and I that our patience level would increase and our frustration level would decrease. Thanks

Continued Improvement

Sara has gotten better through the night and day. Her bowels sound good, much softer. She is eating again and now we can feed her whatever she will take. I was thinking a milkshake, but we better wait. All of the various x-rays, blood tests, CT scans have come back negative for anything serious. Also negative for infection or inflammation. She does have a low grade fever, not sure what that is about. That may require her to stay a little longer just to make sure all is ok. Jennifer's doing good as well as the girls. They sure have been awesome through all of this craziness. Thank the Lord for He is Good

Sara is eating again

They have let her eat 3 times so far this afternoon and late morning - 30cc's each time. She has wanted more. They may bump her up tonight. She is doing well, bowels are working. They want to keep her tonight and maybe tomm night just to make sure this is all clear and it is not shunt related. Her CT scan looked good and the ventricle size has improved. Thanks for praying - keep it up!

Sara's bowels are improved

Sara was very fussy and irritable yesterday - very unlike herself. And she quit eating - again, very unusual. So when we tried once again to feed her around 6:30 she puked and that is when we called the neurosurgeon. We thought for sure it was shunt related because we had just seen the pediatrician who noticed nothing unusual, she had no fever, no other signs of sickness. The neurosurgeon told us to meet him at the ER. We did, they did x-rays and thankfully it was not the shunt.

Sara has distended bowels. Basically they quit working, filled with pockets of air. Thank the Lord He gave us the wisdom to call and go, it could have gotten worse. It is not extremely serious, in fact the pediatrician said for a normal full term 2 month old they would have sent us home. But welcome to the wonderful world of preemies. With her history they admitted her in PICU (not the same unit we have been in) and began to draw that air out and decompress her bowels. They did another x-ray at 4 this morning and it looked better already. The doc checked her at 6:45 and he could hear bowel sounds. She had another CAT scan at 8:30 and if that looked good she would get to eat a little bit from a bottle to see how she would do.

Apparently, this is a semi-normal thing in the NICU. One of our nurses said she was surprised Sara hadn't had to deal with it already. Hopefully everything will get to working and we can bring her home once again this evening or tomorrow. Thanks you guys for lifting her up - God is good, has been good, and will always be good - no matter what!

Hey guys, had to take Sara to ER tonight- wouldn't eat. She has distended bowels, and we have a few days in PICU. Please pray.

First Pediatric Visit

Sara did great today. She is up to 6lbs 5oz -thanks for praying about weight issues -she is good.

We Haven't Forgot about You all

Did ya miss me? I just ate and am now milk drunk

Ok, ok, ok. Sara's fans have spoken and I can no longer take a weekend off from letting you know how she is doing. Or at least for the time being.

She has done great since being home. This is by light years the most laid back of our three kids. Now, even though she is over 2 months, developmentally she is still a newborn. That was an interesting thing we learned from a nurse that for preemies it takes about two years to catch up. So when she is 12 months old she should be doing what a 10 month old is doing. These are not hard and fast rules, just general guidelines to watch for. And with a the head trauma she has suffered there may be more delays. Or by the grace of God, His kind hand and therapy- small to no delays.

The first night - not too much fun. Oh, Sara did great. It' s just her nutty parents who woke up every 18.7 seconds to make sure she is alive. You would think with our third child we wouldn't do that. But, we also hadn't had a preemie. Finally I told myself, ok God if she just lays there and dies then she is going to die. I can't watch every breath all night! It has definitely improved since then. We are getting used to her little squeaks and sounds all night. We know she is stable. Or maybe it's just gotten better because her bassinet is on Jennifer's side of the bed now. Whatever the case, I'm sleeping better.

The bassinet - why we didn't have one of these with our other two I'll never know. I think at the time we were ascribing to the idea that sleeping children should be isolated in total darkness inside a soundproof nursery that your spent umpteen hours painting and oodles of dollars decorating. Hindsight always gets me.

You can see the clear outline of the shunt system. One top is the incision which is now stitches free.

You know how lions sleep like 18-20 hours a day. I think we have a lion-human hybrid. Sara just sleeps. She has two good wake times a day and then sleeps. We have her in her bassinet in the middle of the hub-bub of two older sisters who do not hold back volume wise. And she sleeps. It's really amazing. If our first child would have been like that we would have had a dozen by now.

Emma Grace is also happy little sis is home. This is improvement. When we told the girls we were pregnant Abigail did the Mexican Hat Dance screaming around the living room. EG just laid on the couch in my lap and said nothing. Jennifer said - Emma Grace are you happy we are going to have a baby? She wagged her finger back and forth saying -No, no, no, no, no. Classic middle child

Her first doc appt was today with the neurosurgeon. He was very very pleased. He took out the stitches in her head. The spot where the reservoir was is still raised, but he said it is going down. We won't see him for 2 weeks. Next up - pediatrician. Pray for her weight to be good so Jennifer can keep nursing. Thanks to a best friend from high school (thanks Goldie) we have a borrowed scale and have been weighing her. So far so good.

The biggest adjustment she had to make was her temp. Needless to say we keep our house a bit cooler than NICU. So her first temp check was...shall we say - too low. So we have been keeping her bundled in a onesie, snap up thingy, socks, hat and blankets and she is getting better. We can take her hat off during the day. In fact the neurosurgeon was starting to take her clothes off today to check her stomach incision and saw all the layers and said - Good gosh woman, it's summertime! (you would have to know him).

Sara is now nursing at each feeding and we are following with a bottle if she tires out before she gets enough to eat. It is amazing being home with her. Not going to the hospital. It feels like we have 36 hours in a day right now. I know that isn't going to last long, but we are going to enjoy it right now.

We got a surprise today from some members of a church I used to pastor. They overwhelmed us with their love. Thanks you all- you will always be dear to us. And to the rest of you - thanks for the prayers, thanks for caring, thanks for loving Sara. I don't often comment on all of your comments - but they continually encourage us with smiles and tears. You all are the best!

Give me a hug ya big lug!