What did Tina want for her birthday? To shorten her “to do” list, of course! We went out shopping today for housewares for the apartment we’re moving into the day after Christmas. Our original plan when we moved to Gainesville was to rent what we needed considering we wouldn’t be her more then 12 weeks (heh…so much for that). Now that we’re going to be her ’til summer, this no longer makes financial sense.

After our mini shopping spree, we headed on over to the hospital to see our girl. The Bun has been maintaining her steady track. She looks good and her numbers look good too. Her feeding is doing ok, but she seems to be retching more. They tried the plan of venting 10 minutes before feeding and 30 minutes after, but Ella doesn’t seem to be tolerating that well. So they’re letting her vent longer and hope to slowly reduce the post feeding vent time. We need this to happen so Ella can get to the bolus feeding stage.

We saw baby Par’s mom and grandma (Liz and Barbara) on the other side of the NICU. We switched for a bit and Barbara sat with Tina while I hung out with Liz. Barbara was able to hold Ella for a bit which was so great. I had told Liz that it was Tina’s birthday, and of course I received a bunch of grief for not telling her sooner (hehe).

Barbara invited us to dinner with them, so all five of us met up to celebrate Tina’s birthday. We had a such a great time hanging out, sharing stories, laughing about those stories, and a bit at each other =).

After dinner (thanks again Barbara!), we headed back to the NICU to be with our girl. I was hoping to see Jasmine and Chris before they left town. Yesterday, they indicated to Tina that they might stop by today. I was hoping they would so I could say goodbye, but it doesn’t look like I’ll get that chance.

Thank you again to all of you who prayed for this precious family. We have been blessed by our lives crossing paths, and we continue to pray that the Lord will draw them close to Him.

It’s almost midnight, and Tina and the nurse are putting our baby girl to sleep. Rest well sweet Ella and know how much you’re loved by so many, even more so by our Savior.