In Faith, Day by Day: NICU day 33

I went home this week for three days, Jillian was nice and stable for me. It was so nice to be able to clean my own house (I was on bed rest since Dec. 1), I have a "sickness" and I really enjoy cleaning my house and having everything put away. I was very blessed during my bed rest and my house stayed very clean thanks to a lot of people who love me, but it was so fun to do it myself. My favorite things in this life are being a wife and a mother, and I love being able to take care of my gifts. I spent my first day home cleaning from top to bottom and doing laundry in my new washer and dryer (my old washer broke while I was in the hospital) that my parents bought for us while I was in the hospital. They are amazing and my clothes smell better than ever! The second day I was home and the main reason I came home was that my daughter was dancing in a parade and opening up for a local beauty pageant. That was so much fun to do with her, she is a spectacular daughter. The third day home I spent packing for the whole family to come back up to the hospital for the weekend and for my kids to spend the week at their adopted Grandparents house.

Jillian had a good week over all. She is tolerating her feedings very well and will be at full feeds on Tuesday at which time they will add extra calories to my mommy milk to fatten her up. She is 2 whole pounds as of this morning! It's funny she looks so big to me, funny what 1/2 a pound does on such a small baby. If she was still in my belly she would be around 3 pounds now. Her O continues to do amazingly well, the doctors are so shocked, it's great. She had made some progress on her vent setting this week, she started out at 26/7 and got herself down to 23/7 and then her CO2's went sky high again so they had to increase it up to 27/7 before she stabilized again. That was yesterday, now she is back at 26/7. Everything looks good so the doctor thinks that she was being weaned down too fast. It's frustrating because this is the second time this has happened when her primary nurses don't have her and her primary doctor is not on. Lord, please give Jillian the perfect nurses she needs to complete a full round of primary nurses! Her doctor is writing strict orders on how her weaning down should go for the future, so I pray we don't keep doing this. I feel so blessed by her care here, everyone is amazing the only reason I would like to have around the clock primaries is not because all the nurses are not wonderful, it is because her primaries really know her and her little quirks so they know what to do and how fast to go. They pass that info on but there is a learning curve for each nurse. They also heard a murmur again on the day she had to go back up on her vent settings, so the doctor ordered another echo, he is thinking that her PDA may have opened up again. I will not have the results of this until tomorrow. Please pray for this to close and to stay closed.

Thank you all and God bless you!

Alexis as a pirate for the parade