First off, if you didn’t get a chance to see yesterday’s post, you’ll want to do so. There’s a video there of Tina holding Ella for the first time, and some pictures of me and my girl as well.

Let me take this moment to clarify what Tina said about us being “more emotional” yesterday =). Being the crazy emotional ball-baby that I am, I fully expected to cry my eyes out when I was able to hold Ella for the first time on Wednesday night. To my surprise, I didn’t. I think the moment was just so shocking, that the tears did not flow.

If I am totally honest, I still can’t believe that she’s my baby…MY BABY! What…huh??? That’s my kid I’m holding…no…wait…but…we tried for five years to have a baby and we weren’t able to, and now there’s this baby in the NICU and……what??? MY BABY!

It still hasn’t hit me. Which I think also tempered the tears.

Now, yesterday, after putting together the video, and Tina and I watched it the first time, WE BALLED OUR EYES OUT!!!! To come through all this and have that moment of indescribable joy was just so overwhelming. I think we just needed some time to take it in.

We keep watching the video and are just amazed how blessed we are to have come through to this point. There is no way to silence our Praise of our Heavenly Father for this journey…the WHOLE journey.

So, how is Ella doing today. She is doing GREAT!

The last couple days she had seemed to be a bit more fussy, even before and during the time we held her on Wednesday. Yesterday evening, her blood gas didn’t look that good either. Her blood was drawn right after she was upset, but I didn’t know what to really think of the numbers.

Well this morning, nurse Andrea let us know that her last blood gas was fabulous: pH=7.41, cO2=49, pO2=122. With those numbers, they weened her vent down to 10 breaths per minute! This is so good. If our baby girl takes 60 breaths per minute, 50 of those are on her own!

Every day is another day closer to her being extubated (breathing tube removed). I bet it happens sometime next week, but we’re content to wait on His perfect timing. She won’t be totally ventilator free once this happens, but she will have graduated to CPAP, a form of ventilation by forcing air through the nose.

Her feeds have also been bumped up to 20ccs per hour, and her output of those feeds have increased as well ;-).

They’re not going to ween any of her sedation meds over the weekend, but her Octreotide will probably be DC’d (discontinued). This is the medication that helped with Ella’s chylothorax (chest fluid issue).

Praising God for today and resting in His peace.

Psalm 37:3-4
3 Trust in the LORD and do good;
dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.