Rocking some pajamas and a faux-hawk

The girls had a great day today. Liana finished her bottle with me in 30 minutes! I am so thankful that she has shown some improvement in this area. It also looks like she had less desats and bradys than the other day. She now weighs 3 lbs 9 ozs.
Here she is being all cute in her little pajamas.

Adleigh looked great today. She kept smiling at me and I was loving it. We still have a few days left of antibiotics so maybe when those are over we will finally start her feeds back up. We just have to make sure that her belly is ready for all of that. I got a good picture of her eyes open today and one of her little feet (even though you can see the sat probe and a band-aid from where they stuck her). I don't know if you can tell from the picture but she had a little faux-hawk going on there. I joked to her that she was already starting to take after her daddy.

On the road to recovery

Man, I have been so tired at night that I just can't seem to add in blogging to my nightly routine, but here I am giving you the update in the mid-morning.

Adleigh is still doing great. They say she is being really alert and moving around. She is doing great being on 4 liters of oxygen at room air. I am sure they will be able to wean her down even more soon. Yesterday the central line that she had surgically put in had some blood coming out of the incision. They checked everything and it still looked great it just might have been she pulled a stitch or something. So they changed her dressing and will keep watching it. There is a paste they can put on it to help any bleeding to stop. She weighed 4 lbs 13.4 ozs! Some of that is her retaining fluid so they think once she loses the fluid she might go back down a little. She looks like she is feeling so much better! We still aren't sure when they will start her feeds back. Her tummy still isn't completely normal but with each xray it looks like it might be getting a little better. She still has a few more days on antibiotics so they might just wait until they are finished. And lastly, we got the results back from Adleigh's eye test and she has stage 1 ROP in the second zone. So her and Liana have the same thing. Still isn't of much concern, but they will keep an eye on her.

Liana did a better with her bottle yesterday. She still didn't take all of it but she didn't turn blue. She seems to be going through a little bit of a weird phase. She had been eating her bottles like a champ and now she doesn't really care about eating from it. And she has had a few more bradys and apnea than she did a few days ago. They think it is just all reflux related so they increased the time it takes for her food to go in to 2 hours. I talked to the doctor about her brain ultrasounds and it is still slowly resolving. He showed me all her scans and you can see how it is starting to looking better. He and a nurse practitioner told me that the fact she doesn't need a shunt with a grade 4 bleed is a miracle already. The doctor even prayed with me after we looked at the scans...I love it! I just can't wait until we see all that God is going to continue to do in her life. I have no doubt that Liana's brain is going to be completely healed and that God will receive so much glory for it.

2 months old

Adleigh and Liana turned 2 months old yesterday! Both of the girls were having a pretty good day. Adleigh didn't have any bradys or apnea so I am sure they will wean down her flow today. I got to hold her for a little bit and in the week that had passed since I last held her she has gained some massive weight. I felt like she was truly a baby now. She did have to get another blood transfusion because her hemoglobin was low. At some point they will let her get low enough for her to make her own blood, but since she is still getting over her infection they didn't want to push her.

Liana took a whole bottle from the nurse at 11 yesterday, but when I went to try at 5 she just kept spitting and gagging. At one point she had a brady and her face turned blue. I usually handle these situations pretty well, but seeing her face turn blue really scared me. Thankfully, she just had a lot of mucus in her nose and once we got that out she seemed to feel a lot better and could breathe easily. So we think that we might lower Liana back down to 2 bottles a day just so she isn't being pushed too hard. She also had her brain ultrasound yesterday and we haven't gotten the results back from that yet. Hopefully today I can find out something.

Thank you for all the prayers. Our little girls are getting bigger and stronger and we are so thankful at how God is already using them to touch other people's lives.

Off the vent

Adleigh is doing great after the surgery. They were able to take her off the vent and she is at 5 liters on the nasal cannula. She seemed to feel a lot better and I finally got to see her today with her eyes open and moving around.

The girls each had their eye exams today and it looked like they were the same as last time. The eye exams are pretty stressful for them, but they both did really well. Liana needed to have a little more oxygen after her eye exam and they decided not to feed her with the bottle except for when I came in., so that she could recover from everything. Liana took 25 of the 28 mls she gets now.

Here is a video of Adleigh showing us her pretty face and acting like she feels much better.

Central Line

Adleigh had the central line put in around 3:30 today. The surgeon said she did great. When we went to visit her after the surgery she looked like she was very relaxed and happy to be on some pain meds. She has been doing so much better with her breathing and if she hadn't been getting a surgical procedure done they would have tried taking her off the vent today, but now they will wait until she has woken up from the surgery. She is acting like she feels a little better with each day, but we have yet to see our little wide-eyed, curious girl. It won't be long before she is bouncing back though.

Liana didn't do as well with her bottles today. I think she only took about half of each one. When I was feeding her she was pretty much asleep the whole time. She now weighs 3 lbs 8 ozs!

Getting Better

Sorry my update is a little late. Just needed some sleep and went to a baby shower for my friend Janet Brey this morning.

Anyway, Adleigh seems to be a little more active with each new day. They were able to wean her vent settings some and she is doing much better with taking some of her own breaths on top of what the vent is doing for her. The doctor was going to give one last try for her to get a PCVC line put in. So they had a nurse last night that went to look to see if she could find a vein that would be good for the line and she couldn't find one. So it looks like they are going to do the surgery to put a central line in. The surgery for this is pretty quick and it won't really bother Adleigh much. And as soon as she doesn't need the line anymore they can take it out easily. So either today or tomorrow she will most likely have that procedure done. All of the cultures they have taken are still negative so the conclusion has come to that she has a viral infection. And her lungs have a lot of junk in them so they think she got pneumonia on top of that. But she is doing much better than a few days ago so I think we are at the end stretch with everything. By the way, Adleigh now weighs 4 lbs 7 ozs! Even when she is not feeling well she is still chunking up.

Liana is still doing amazing. They have her trying 3 bottles a day and she usually takes a whole one from me. She is doing much better with us handling her and the only time she really desats is if I am changing her diaper. She weighs 3 lbs 5.6 ozs! Little Liana is getting some meat on her.

Trusting

It has been tough these last few days. Wade and I talked about how we are continuing to trust in the Lord, but it is so hard to understand why certain things happen. I just keep going back to the book of Habbakuk and remembering that the Lord is sovereign. I looked through some of my old blogs and I have seen how God has already answered so many prayers. So it takes remembering how God has worked in our past to help us in the present. God has spoken to us that the girls will be healthy so I am trusting in His promise.

So, the doctors still aren't sure of what is causing Adleigh to be so sick. So far the blood culture, urine culture, and lumbar puncture (spinal fluid) haven't had anything come back. The lumbar puncture (LP) was taken today at 5 so I wouldn't expect anything to come back from that yet. The LP will show if she has meningitis and if she does she has to be on antibiotics for 21 days. Adleigh's nurse today said she didn't think that she had meningitis since she was beginning to act a little better today. It is looking like she has a viral infection which they can't do anything for. Her body would just have to recover on its own. So they are trying to make her comfortable and give her all the support she needs with her breathing, body temperature, and nutrients. One big setback today was that the nurses were unable to get a PCVC (a more permanent IV line) in her vein. Basically they get 3 tries to get one in and today was the third try. So they will try to just use the regular IV for as long as possible, but the next step would be to surgically put in the line. So she would basically have a hose coming out of her chest. We definitely don't want Adleigh to have to go through another surgery so please pray that she will only need the regular IV and she can get it removed quickly.

Liana took another whole bottle today. It is so funny because for the first 20-30 minutes she acts like it is the most horrible thing ever and makes all kinds of faces at me and looks like she is about to cry. And then after 20 minutes she turns into a different baby and starts eating like crazy. So it takes a good 45 minutes to and hour for her to eat 26 ml (30 ml is an ounce)! She got the okay to get 2 bottles a day now so she will get one from me around 5 pm and one by the nurses at 2 am. Liana continues to do better with her oxygen and she seems to tolerate being touched a lot more now. She had a huge dirty diaper that ended up getting on her clothes and blankets and it took 15 minutes for me to clean everything up and she didn't desat at all during that time! I am so proud of her.

What's wrong?

Adleigh is still on the vent and the doctors aren't really sure what is wrong with her. Nothing has grown from the blood culture so that is a good thing, but it also means that we don't know what she is trying to fight. She acts like she has an infection so they are giving her all the antibiotics she would need. They mentioned the possibility that it could be a viral infection which they can't really give any medicine for that. Her body would just have to fight off a viral infection on its own. Hopefully within a few days they can get her off the vent and put her back on the high flow. Then we will have to work back up on her feedings. But we are just praying that God heals Adleigh and gives her strength to fight off whatever is making her so sick.

Liana took a whole bottle today! It is still taking a lot of effort to make her eat it, but she eventually does it. She is being really alert when we take her out of the isolette and we love having those times with her. They moved her oxygen back up to 1 liter (she was down to 0.8) because she was desatting more and since the change she has been able to be weaned down to 21 percent which is room air. Next week sometime they will try to see if she can go to 0.8 again.
So there is a quick update for you...thanks for all the prayers!

Back to the NICU

Adleigh had to go back to the NICU. The xray of her stomach this morning actually looked really good. So that wasn't the issue anymore. They were also able to wean her down on her oxygen to 0.2 liters. That is almost nothing! So today she started having lots of desats. This is not how Adleigh usually acts. She went from 0.2 liters up to 3 liters within 5 hours. So they did a blood count on her and she had a hemoglobin level of 7 (they usually want it to be 10-12). And it came back that her white blood cell count was a little off. Since all of this was happening they decided that she needed to go back to the NICU where she can get some extra attention. She ended up getting a blood transfusion today at 2 pm and she is going to get another one at 2 am. She was having way too many apnea spells (where she stops breathing) so at 6:30 pm they put her on the vent. I absolutely hate seeing her on the vent, but I know that this is what she needs to rest and breathe better. We started antibiotics just in case she has an infection and they 24 hour mark will be at 12 pm tomorrow.

Liana has been our little encourager today. She got to go down on her oxygen to 0.8 liters. She seems to like it but is still having to adjust to the difference. I haven't been able to get her to take a whole bottle yet, but she is getting the hang of taking one a little more and she doesn't get as mad when I put the bottle in her mouth. As soon as she takes a whole one they will let her try taking 2 a day. So my goal for tomorrow is to finish a bottle.

Here are our prayer requests:

1. That the blood transfusion will help Adleigh regain her strength so she can get off the vent quickly.
2. That there will not be an infection.
3. That Liana will finish a bottle tomorrow.
4. Liana tends to desat when we touch her so please pray that she begins to tolerate and even enjoy when she is being handled.
5. And as always pray that Liana's next ultrasound shows her brain is clear of any evidence that there was ever a bleed.

Here is sweet Liana all bundled up with an awesome hat on.

A cute close-up of Adleigh.

And here is an awesome video of Adleigh from 2 days ago when we were able to feed her the bottle she finished and burp her!

Adleigh update

I just wanted to put a quick update on Adleigh so you can pray for her today. I called this morning and found out they had stopped her feedings because she had air in her tummy and when they pressed on her stomach she seemed to be in discomfort. So they are waiting 24 hours and then seeing how her xray looks in the morning. If it looks better then she will get to eat again, but if it is the same or worse then they will have to send her back to the NICU so they can figure out what is going on with her. Right now she has an IV back in (so sad) and they think she just needs a little break from eating, but I will let you know the latest update tomorrow.

Baptism Awesomeness

Today was amazing at church. We ended up having around 400 people decide to be baptized today at both of our campuses. Which means over the past 2 weeks 1,000+ people have been baptized. I was blown away by what God did in our church today. Also, the band did the song Healer and it was so powerful. I think a lot of people really connected with that song and I got really emotional singing it today.

Adleigh took one entire feeding through the bottle today...that was 35 ml which is a little over an ounce. I was so proud of her. Then I gave Liana a bottle today as well. She seemed to like it more than she did yesterday and it looked like she was eating but when we looked at how many mls she had eaten it was only 2. So apparently she just wasn't sucking hard enough to get anything out. Both girls were doing better with their oxygen saturations and bradys. We are seeing our girls overcome so many obstacles and we are praising God for all of that progress.

Reflux and storm doors

Looks like the girls are enjoying progressive care. Today Wade's parents and uncle came to our house to fix some things before the girls come home. We now have a storm door on our side entrance because there was a bad draft there. They also worked on putting a closet organizer in the girls room. We are just trying to make sure our house is ready!

Everything is about the same with the girls today. Our main prayer for them right now is to grow out of their reflux. Their reflux causes apnea and bradys and although they recover quickly it still is something they have to really watch.

Liana tried to take the bottle again today, but was not having it. She only took about 4 ml out of it. But it won't be long until she takes a whole one. Practice makes perfect.

Everyone goes to Progressive

Adleigh and Liana are both in progressive now! Liana went today at 4:45 and so far she is liking it over there. She did have a couple of bradys (where her heart rate dropped) right before she was supposed to be moved so we had to wait a little while to see if she was going to be okay. Both girls are dropping their heart rate and having more apnea (not breathing) when they are eating and that is because they have reflux. Reflux is really common in preemies, but we want them to overcome this very soon.

Adleigh took another bottle again today and get 6 ml out of the bottle. This is 3 more than the day before. It won't be long until she gets the hang of it.

Here is Adleigh getting her bottle.

And here is Liana with her daddy holding her hand.

Progressive Care

I called today to find out they were going to move Adleigh to progressive care today. She ended up going over there around 2 this afternoon. She has a great spot and it is so quiet and spacious. They also brought her down to .5 liter on her oxygen and she is still breathing really well. We attempted to give her a bottle today, but she only took around 3 mls. But she is learning and she will catch on to it pretty fast I am sure!

Liana will more than likely go to progressive care tomorrow. They turned her down to 1 liter on her oxygen today and they wanted to see how she did with it. So far she hasn't had too many desats. It is so exciting to see our girls finally becoming healthy babies! Praise our mighty God!!

Taking a bottle

Liana actually drank 10 ml of milk from a bottle today. This is the best she has done with this so far and we were there to take a pictures and some video. So here is the short video we took!


I got to give Liana a tub bath tonight. She really seemed to like being all wrapped up in the warm blanket after the bath was over and it looked like she was enjoying her hair being brushed.
She also only had one desat episode recorded today which means she is becoming more stable with her oxygen. We are continuing to pray that she will be off the nasal cannula in a week.

Adleigh got off of her IV fluids called "triple mix" today. She is still on clear fluids and they will probably run that for a day or two. So we are pretty close to having that IV taken out! She is also doing so much better with digesting her food. She is having less aspirate and it isn't taking as long to go through her system. The girls keep having such great days!

1 Liter

Adleigh went to 1 liter on her nasal cannula! She seems to like the change and hasn't desat any more than she did with 2 liters. She is working up on her feeds...she is up to 26 mls now. By tomorrow night she should be off of her IV fluids and then maybe Thursday she will be able to have her IV taken out. I am pretty sure as soon as she gets this IV out they will put in the order for her to go to progressive care.

Liana is doing about the same. They started giving her a bottle once a day yesterday. But she doesn't know what to do with it yet. She sucked a few times but then she chokes and forgets to breathe. But soon she will learn to coordinate how to breathe while she eats. They are also talking about Liana going to progressive care. Since she has MRSA they have a longer wait for a bed space, but I think they may give the order for her to be moved either tomorrow or Thursday.

Check out Adleigh being adorable yet again...(I do have a video, but it is too big so you will have to just see the pic right now)

And here is Liana with her primary nurse Darlania. We are going to miss her and all of our other sweet NICU nurses when we move to progressive. And Darlania is pretty sad about her leaving too!

Bullet Point Updates

Here are a few updates from the day:

• Liana's cranial ultrasound showed that it is still unchanged. This is still great news because it shows that she doesn't have any swelling in her brain. We are praying that her ultrasound in 2 weeks will show that the bleed is completely resolved and if they are coming home at the end of August then that would be her last ultrasound.
• We found out the results of Adleigh's and Liana's eye test. Adleigh's showed that her eye blood vessels are still immature (which is the result we want) and Liana's showed that she has stage 1 ROP. Stage 1 isn't too bad and the ophthalmologist isn't concerned. This is something that can heal on its own and just needs to be monitored. He is going to check both girls in 2 weeks.
• Liana may have the order written tomorrow to go to progressive care. They will try to send other babies if possible before her so that she and Adleigh can try and go around the same time.
• Adleigh is working up on her feedings. She has still been having aspirate so right now she is at 23 ml and they can't go up on her feedings unless she has less than 2 ml of aspirate. We want to get that IV out!
• On an interesting note, we found out that while we were blazing last night with no air that the NICU's air conditioning also broke and they were sweating it out too for a little while. They even took the clothes off the babies. It is pretty funny to think that the all of the Joye family was sleeping while it was hot! By the way, ours got fixed and it is cool again.
  

Thank you for all the prayers, love, and support!

Baptisms, Eyes, and Air

Today church was amazing! We had spontaneous baptisms and so many people came forward. I was so excited and clapping and then I saw this middle school girl who was crying and after seeing her and thinking about all of the people coming down to publicly show their dedication to God I started getting teary eyed! It was awesome.

Liana had a bit of a rough day after her eye exam. The exam is pretty grueling and it really takes a lot out of the girls. Liana ended up vomiting/spitting up two times. She also had to go up on her oxygen percentage. She went through a lot today. We felt so bad for her. We haven't gotten back the results from the eye exam for either girl yet but we should know something tomorrow.

Adleigh didn't like the fortifier in the milk and she had too much aspirate so they stopped her on the fortifier and they are thinking of trying another type. They are holding her at 22 ml and tomorrow they will decide what their next step is. She still needs to get to 27 ml in order to be at full feeds and off her IV fluids.

When we got home from seeing the girls tonight, we walked into a house that was 89 degrees. Our air conditioning unit is broken. Apparently it will turn on but the fan doesn't work and it kind of sounds like it is going to explode and it is really hot to touch. So we turned it off and turned our ceiling fan on high. Hopefully our air conditioning service people can come out in the morning. We set up camp in the living room and have an air mattress to sleep on!

The girls keep trucking on

The girls are getting closer and closer to progressive care. It is awesome to hear the nurses say, "I will be back on Monday with her...that is if she is even here." How far we have come!

Liana has a cranial ultrasound on Monday. She has these every two weeks to keep check on any swelling in the ventricles and to watch how the bleed is resolving. All the doctors and nurses seem kind of amazed that she hasn't had any swelling in the ventricles. Wait until they see a completely normal brain on one of those scans!

Adleigh is still working on being on full feeds (the max amount of food for her weight). They added fortifier to the breast milk to give her more calories and when they did that she started having more aspirate (stuff left in her stomach). So, now they are going to hold her at a smaller amount and then see if she does better. They think she just needs time for her digestive system to learn how to digest this new part of food. So we probably have a day or two before she is off her IV fluids and on full feeds.

Both girls are supposed to have their second eye exam today. Please continue to pray that there will be no sign of retinopathy of prematurity.

I also had a shower yesterday and it was amazing. I felt so loved and the girls got lots of great things. We got a lot of our big items we needed and tons of cute clothes! Thanks so much everyone who came and for all the wonderful gifts. You all are so generous!


Here is a little family pic with Adleigh!

It's August

It is officailly August. This is the month that we have been praying that the girls would come home. There are 4 weeks in August so if the girls are going to come home these are the things that have to happen before then:

• The girls need to be off of oxygen. They are on 2 liters and we need to go to 0 liters. We are pretty close.
• The girls have to learn how to eat with a bottle or learn how to breastfeed and take all their feedings that way. We haven't even attempted to bottle or breastfeed yet so we have some work to do in this area.
• They have to regulate their own body temperature. They are both learning how to do this in their isolettes now. Once they have gotten good with that and stay hot in their isolette they will move them to an open bassinet.

There might be some more things they have to learn so if i think of any others or if I am told something else then I will let you know. These bullet points are what Wade and I are specifically praying for our girls to accomplish by the end of August. We just want them home so bad! Thanks for praying with us.

On another note...I know this is probably a longshot but I figured I would throw it out there. We have one White Martine Lifetime Crib made by Delta Enterprises and Babies R Us sold out of them and it has been discontinued. We want two of them so I went looking on Craigslist and found one, but the lady had already sold it. So if anyone has connections to this style of crib let me know because I would love to buy it from you!

You're so pretty!

Adleigh and Liana are having fantastic days! They are getting so big. Each day I am so suprised when they tell me their weights. Tonight Liana is 2 lbs 12 ozs and Adleigh is 3 lbs 10 ozs.

Adleigh finally had a poo and let's just say she made up for the days that she hadn't gone. I was the one changing her diaper and she went projectile with it. It was everywhere and we had to completely clean out her isolette.

Liana had an actual bath tonight...in a tub. We weren't there but the nurse said she loved it. Apparently she got really relaxed and looked super happy. I can't wait until we can be there for the next one!

Lastly, here is a video to make you all swoon with how adorable Adleigh is. Watch how she reacts when Wade starts talking to her. You can totally see she recognizes his voice and is so excited that he is talking to her.

Physical Therapist

The girls are still doing awesome! It feels wonderful to have a week where everything is happening better than it is supposed to and when you call there isn't much going on.

Both girls had the physical therapist visit them today. She said everything looked fantastic. She can only really check their reflexes and muscle tone right now since they are so little, but both of those looked great for the girls. She will check Adleigh once a week and Liana will get checked twice a week since she had the IVH (brain bleed).

We just called the nursery and found out Liana is now 2 lbs 11 oz! (Adleigh's nurse wasn't available so we don't know her weight...last time she was 3 lbs 7 oz). I think that is all the news for today.

Wade got to hold Liana tonight. It had been awhile since he had been able to hold her for an extended period of time. He was so happy and Liana even smiled a few times.

Little Champs

We have been so blessed to have the girls doing great right now. Adleigh is still eating and we are just trying to get to it up there so we can take her off of her IV that gives her the other nutrients she needs. She is up to 13 ml of milk and I think her max is 27 ml. They actually had to up her max some since she is becoming a little chunk! She is also being a champ with her breathing and we are so proud of her!

Liana is getting so much better with her oxygen. For some reason she will desat a lot when we are messing with her. Maybe she just wants her beauty sleep! But during the day she mostly stays at room air and only needs more oxygen when it is during her cares. Her primary nurse is off for the next 4 days and she said she is scared that they will take her to the progressive care unit while she is gone. Just hearing the nurses start to talk regularly about progressive care seems so unreal. We had that as our goal for so long and now we are close. The Lord is so good!

Birthday Present

The girls have come so far! Both the girls are on 2 liters now! How amazing is this? They are doing so well with their breathing. A specific prayer we have had for the past few weeks are that the girls will be totally off of oxygen by 34 weeks. I believe that God is working in their little bodies and that we will see this request answered.

Adleigh is up to 10 mls of food and not having as much aspirate. She is almost halfway there to getting full feeds. The nurse said she wouldn't be surprised if Adleigh went to progressive care by the end of the week or next week sometime. That seems so crazy, but we are really excited.

Liana is doing so much better with her breathing. Thank you so much for all your prayers. We are really seeing the power of them right now. Liana was supposed to have her brain ultrasound today, but they decided that since her last one was stable that they weren't as concerned about it. They are going to probably check it every two weeks. So we are praying that the next ultrasound will show she is completely healed.

In honor of Grammy's birthday today and since the girls are finally doing so well, we let Grammy (Wade's mom) hold Liana for a few minutes. Bev was so happy and I am pretty sure that it was the best birthday present!

(Adleigh while I was holding her)

(Liana smiling in her adorable onesie)

(Grammy holding Liana)

Brrrr...It's cold in here

Liana was doing a little better with her oxygen today. She was recovering on her own faster when she was desatting. They added fortifier to the breast milk so that she could get more calories. She was also cold today and we aren't sure why. She had a temperature probe on for the isolette to warm her up but she was still low. We just called and they said she had warmed up, but since she had been cold all day we think she used up more of her calories to try and stay warm. She had lost some weight and was back down to 2 lbs 8 ozs. Our three big prayer requests for Liana are: that she would become more stable with her breathing (not as many desatts), that she would gain weight, and that her brain ultrasound will come back tomorrow showing she is completely healed.

Adleigh was our star pupil today. She is almost 3 lbs 5 ozs and is now up to 8 ml of milk every 3 hours. She has been breathing on 3 liters at room air and her oxygen level stays at 99 to 100 (which is amazing). When we called about her, the nurse said she had heard a rumor that Adleigh may go to 2 liters tomorrow. If she is at 2 liters and full feeds they would send her to the progressive care nursery. She has a little while to get to full feeds, but we are getting closer! Just 9 days ago little Adleigh had her surgery and was not wanting to breathe and now she is doing so well. God has really strengthened her lungs and little body. Our huge prayer request for Adleigh is that she will continue to tolerate her feedings and not have any aspirate.

Wearing Some Clothes

We got to have a lot of fun with Adleigh today. She was all bundled up and we got to take her temperature and change her diaper. She had a dirty diaper (yay!) and then as I was changing her she proceeded to have another poo. It was disgusting, but also incredibly awesome because we know that her digestive system is starting to work a little bit better and I am sure it made her tummy feel a lot better. After all of that we got to put Adleigh in a onesie! It is the preemie size and still too big. She looked completely adorable and I think I did pretty well for dressing my baby the first time.

In medical news, Adleigh is having her food intake upped 1 ml every 9 hours. So she is at 5 mls now. She is still having aspirate, but it usually isn't too much and they just re-feed that and give her new milk on top of it. Breathing wise she was on 5 liters (and breathing like a champ) this morning and by 11 they had dropped her down to 4 liters. She has been doing amazing on it and I think she is going to be off of the oxygen so soon!

We thought that we might be able to give Liana a little sponge bath today, but they had been trying to get her to regulate her own temperature and she got a little cold. So we weren't able to really do anything with her because she needed to get warm again. But we did get to take some pictures of the little outfit they had put her in. How adorable are my little girls?

Liana is up to full feeds now. She gets 20 ml every 3 hours. She still has a lot of up and downs with her oxygen saturations. We want her to get more stable with her breathing so that is our very specific prayer with her now.

Karate Tee

It has been another day that has gone so well. We found out this morning that they had put Adleigh on the nasal cannula. Hooray! She was at 5 liters of oxygen and at room air. She also was all bundled up because they are transitioning her to regulate her own body temperature. So when we unbundled her to change her diaper and check her temperature we got to see Adleigh wearing her first shirt ever! It was so cute. However she was not too happy with being unbundled. She is still eating 2ml, but they decided that tomorrow they will up her feedings since she has done so much better in digesting it.
Here is Adleigh crying it up but you can see the cute little tee. It looks like she is ready for some karate classes.

And here she is all bundled back up.

Liana is up to 18 ml on food now and when we were there today they took out her IV line. So now there are no needles sticking into her! Her nurse said tomorrow that we can give her a little sponge bath. We are also going to bring clothes for both of the girls so they can start dressing them up! It feels so amazing that we are starting to do "normal" things with the girls. I feel like they are getting so big! They are already 5 weeks old and they would have been 32 weeks right now.
Here is me and Liana.

Update for yesterday

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post last night. I fell asleep before I could get a chance! Anyway, yesterday was so awesome. Both girls were doing great. Adleigh was still on her CPAP and not having any bradys or apnea. She is still having a little trouble eating, but it has gotten better. She is now on a medicine to help her food go through her digestive system a little faster. I am pretty sure that today they are going to start upping her feedings 1 ml every 9 to 12 hours. So hopefully that will help pass things along since it will be more food pushing through. I was able to hold Adleigh yesterday for over an hour. She did so well. Never desat or dropped her heart rate! She loved it and so did I.

Liana was still doing her thing. She is up to 16 ml on her food and it eating like a champ! Her IV will be taken out later today if it doesn't come out on its own so she will have one less thing attached to her. She is doing so much better on her oxygen. She is still at 3 liters of oxygen and she sats high a lot. She still likes to take really shallow breathes so we need to get her to stop doing that. I was able to kangaroo Liana yesterday but apparently she got way too comfortable and decided that she was going to breathe really shallow so we had to put her back up after 30 minutes or so.

I think that is everything to update you with from yesterday. I will post tonight on what happens today! Thank you for all the continued prayers...God is making these girls stronger each day and we have seen so many miracles with how fast they are progressing!

Much Better Day

Today was a much better day for Adleigh. She was able to stay on the CPAP and she only had like one little episode in the past 24 hours compared to 1 to 2 every hour that she was having yesterday. She was only on room air on the CPAP so I think within 2 days she will be back on the nasal cannula...if not before then. She is still eating 2 ml but we keep getting stuff back out from her stomach (it is called aspirate). The feeding at 5 she had 9 ml of aspirate in her tummy! The nurse for tonight thought she needed to get out a poo so she tried to help her along and it looks like that could be her problem. So hopefully now we can get Adleigh to poo and digest her food well.

Liana had two dirty diapers today and one of them I got to change. It was my first dirty diaper with the girls. I was able to hold her for about 2 hours again today! It had been awhile since I was able to hold her for that long. She was able to go from 4 liters to 3 liters today on her oxygen settings and she looked like she was pretty happy with the change. The lasix she has been getting to help her lungs get rid of any fluid will end tomorrow. She has upped her feeds to 14 ml and now all she needs to do is get some fat on her!

Rough Day

Well Adleigh certainly had our attention today. When I called this morning they let me know they had put her on the nasal cannula and it seemed she was doing well. When I got to the NICU this afternoon she was still doing okay but she was having more bradys and apnea spells. Around 4 they decided she was having too many so they put her on the bubble CPAP. Since she has been on that we have had some ups and downs. She had two episodes where they had to bag her. When Wade and I were there, we had to stimulate her from her bradys like every 5-10 minutes. On top of that she had to move to a different bed since she was still in her surgery bed and then they had to move her isolette. She had a big day and it was rough on her. When we left her at 9 tonight she was doing better. Please pray that Adleigh would breathe easily and that her brain would remember that she has to keep breathing. We are also specifically praying that she would stay on the bubble CPAP and not have to go back on the vent.

Liana was looking great today. The max she can eat with her food right now is 20 ml and she has gotten up to 12. So we only have a few mls to go before she is at full feeds! And once she gets there and ends her antibiotics we won't have to have her IV line in anymore. And that means we will be able to give her an actual bath at some point. So Liana is doing really well right now. Also, she had a poo last night! Thank you for your continued prayers for her brain and digestive system.

Cute Video

I am trying to read through the Bible and today I started reading Job. What a great book for me to read right now. This response from Job shows so much faith and trust in God. (Job 1:21)
"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." I hope that through everything that has happened with our girls that I will always praise the name of the Lord.

Adleigh was still on the vent today. They decided to give her 4 doses of steroids. She will get one every 12 hours. I think by tomorrow morning she will have had 2 of the doses and they will see if she is ready to try the nasal cannula again. She was pretty alert when I was with her today. She would look around but she couldn't move her head. She did start eating 1 ml of milk every 3 hours and it looks like she has done well with that so far.

Our prayers for Adleigh are: to have her swelling go down in her throat so she will be able to go to the nasal cannula and breathe easily and that she would be able to digest her food.

Liana had another brain ultrasound today and it was stable. Still no real changes and there was no swelling in the ventricles. We were so thankful to hear these results since her head had grown some over the past week, but that looks like it was just head growth...just taking after her daddy! She is up to 10 ml on her feeds and it gets pumped into her stomach over an hour. She tolerates it really well, but she hasn't pooped yet since she started eating. Hopefully we will see that happen soon. They are giving Liana about 9 doses over 3 days of Lasix which will take some of the fluid out of the lungs so that she can have an easier time breathing.

Our prayers for Liana are: that she will have a big poo, that she can wean down on her oxygen, and that ultimately one of her brain scans will come back showing she is completely healed.

I got some great pics of Liana today and an awesome video. Per Wade's request I am posting the video.

One sock on

Wade pretty much put the entire update of today on his blog. It was pretty eventful so check his blog to see what our prayers are for our girls.

I haven't been able to get any good Liana pics in the past two days because she has been pretty sensitive to light. Hopefully I can get some good ones of her tomorrow. But I was able to get some of Adleigh since the surgery. She looks pretty adorable with her one sock on.

Quick Updates

Adleigh is still recovering from her surgery. She has been out of it for about 36 hours now. The nurse tonight said she is starting to move around some more and be a little more active. Once she really wakes up then they will try and wean her off the ventilator. Even when she was totally out of it she was trying to pull her head away from the tubes. I think she will be off of it in no time. Adleigh lost a little weight. I am guessing it is because she went through the surgery and everything. She weighs 3 lbs 3.4 ounces. She is just completely adorable!

Liana is just growing bigger and stronger. She is now up to 5 ml of milk. She has some episodes of desatting but she usually recovers on her own. Wade got to hold her for about 15 minutes but then she desat so we had to put her back up. She is 10 grams away from being 2 lbs 10 ounces! She is growing so fast. I can't believe I have such gorgeous daughters!

Sorry for the fast update. I am so sleepy though! Can't wait for church in the morning!

All PDAs are closed!

Adleigh's surgery went really well! She was scheduled for 9:15 so we got there at 8:00 am to be with her a little bit before surgery. At 10:00 our nurse called to see where the doctor was and we found out he had to do an emergency heart transplant and then another surgery before Adleigh so it would be between 1 and 2 that we would have the surgery. So around 1 she had it and the doctor told us that her PDA was HUGE! It is a miracle that she was breathing so well with a very large PDA open. So once she recovers from her surgery she should do even better with her breathing and with eating.

Liana had a good day today. I got to hold her for about an hour and she did okay. She desatt a little bit so we decided she had enough for the day and let her rest. Our prayer for her is that she will have her brain completely healed with no swelling or fluid build-up. She has reached 4 ml on her feeding which is good.

Adleigh weighs 3 lbs 4 ounces now and Liana weighs 2 lbs 8 ounces. I actually called Adleigh a chunk the other day. I mean when does a 3 lb baby qualify as a chunk?!?

The day before surgery

We found out Adleigh is having surgery around 9:15. We are going to get there early to spend some time with her before the surgical team comes in. Adleigh was doing great today. She actually went down to 4 liters of oxygen and seemed to really like it. I kangarooed her for almost 3 hours today! She needed some mommy time since she is going to be in surgery.

Liana had a pretty good day today as well. She seems to be desating a little more than she used to, but with them being so young their lungs just aren't mature yet so it is a back and forth game with everything. She is going up on her feedings now. She is at 2 ml now and will go up a ml every 12 hours. She did great the first time before her infection so I think she is going to get to full feeds this time and hopefully get the PCVC tube taken out soon. Speaking of infection her blood culture came back negative after 48 hours. We are so happy about this.

Check out sweet little Adleigh today.

Surgery Friday

Just so you know the surgery didn't happen today. It is now scheduled for Friday and they won't be doing another echo before then. God is going to close Adleigh's PDA with the hands of skillful surgeons. It really is amazing how they can do a surgery and put a clamp on a teeny tiny valve. Adleigh will have to go back on the ventilator and she will at least be on it for 24 hours. It is hard to see her not really showing any problems with her PDA being open and now she is going to have to take a few steps backwards, but we know that she will bounce back quickly.

Liana's blood culture from yesterday is still negative so we are just waiting to make sure that it stays negative. Her head circumference grew a little again today, but we still just think it is her growing. It looks like she kind of has spurts of growth and then levels out for a little while. She is 1087 grams now which is almost 2 lbs 7 ounces. Adleigh is 3 lbs 1.7 ounces.

I talked to the optomologist today and she said the girls would have their vision checked on Sunday July 27th. They will be looking for a thing called ROP which is retinopathy of prematurity. This is pretty common for preemies to have and if it is grade 1 or 2 their vision usually corrects itself, but if it is grade 3 or higher then they do a laser surgery. Please pray that their beautiful eyes will be working just fine and they won't have ROP at all.

PDA in full force

Today started like any other normal NICU day. The girls were doing great and basically just chilling out. Then we had the echo cardiogram for Adleigh and I got a call from the cardiologist saying that the echo showed her PDA was pretty large and they were going to do surgery on it tomorrow morning. My heart sank. This was not the news I wanted to hear. But when I went in to see Adleigh I talked to the neonatologist she said that the surgery wouldn't be tomorrow and they were going to wait until her antibiotics are finished and then have another echo to check it. Then Wade went in later and the nurse told him that the neonatologist and the cardiologist haven't spoken yet and that the surgery may or may not happen tomorrow. So we are pretty sure the surgery won't happen, but it has just been super confusing. Please pray they will wait until the antibiotics are finished and that the follow-up echo will show the PDA is completely closed.

Then we found out Liana's blood culture came back positive after 48 hours so they are checking on the antibiotics and considering taking out her PCVC (a more permanent IV line). They did all this with Adleigh so we know what is going on, but we really thought that Liana would have a negative blood culture. We are praying that this infection would be wiped out and that Liana can just focus on eating and growing some more.

The pictures I promised

I promised some pictures in the post from last night since I kept getting errors. So here they are!

This is Liana and me the other night during Kangaroo care time. Her face looks so funny mashed against me.
And here is Adleigh with her fat baby cheeks and a lot of hair! Looks like it is getting some curl to it.

Fat Cheeks

*I had some awesome pics for this post, but after 4 tries of posting them and getting an error everytime I quit. Check back later and I might get some time to try it again.*

I had a great time with both of the girls today. Adleigh was looking super cute and was being alert when I had my time with her. I just held her in blankets today for about twenty minutes since her temperature was a little low for kangaroo care. All the nurses talk about how chubby she is for her size. She really does have some baby fat on her cheeks and they all love her head full of dark hair.

Adleigh has her echo tomorrow and were are continuing to pray that her PDA would be closed. She is still eating her 1 ml of milk every 3 hours and she is doing well with that. Right now she is 2 lbs 15 ounces! So close to 3 lbs.

Liana was looking beautiful today. She opened her eyes a little for me. I got to kangaroo care her and she always looks so comfy. She kept stretching her hand out and would almost touch my face...it was just a little out of her reach.

Liana had her brain scan today and they said everything is pretty much unchanged. One of the nurses told us the results and said the report talked about the level 4 brain bleed on the left side and a level 1 on the right. So we haven't heard from the doctor about the right bleed so we are going to talk to them some more tomorrow. Our prayer is still that God will completely heal her brain and we are excited to see how and when He does this!

We also haven't heard anything come back about her blood culture so that is a great sign. More than likely these antibiotics have killed off the bacteria. Liana is eating her 1 ml every 3 hours and doing great with that. She is up to 2 lbs 3.2 ounces. Yeah for Liana gaining some weight!

My First Birthday as a Mom!

So I turned 24 today and this is my first birthday being a mom! When I walked to Adleigh's isolette I had a little present. It was a little card that had her footprints and it said Happy Birthday Mommy. Love, Adleigh. I was so excited. It was so cute and I can't wait to get a baby book started and put that in there. Although that would require me actually getting some supplies to put together a baby scrapbook. And I have to make two of them so one doesn't feel left out.

Anyway...Adleigh is still doing really well. Wade and I have started praying that Adleigh would soon get down to 4 liters of oxygen (right now she is on 5) and do really well with it. We are also praying that her PDA will be completely closed by her next echo (not sure when that is yet). And our last big request is that she would have an easy time digesting the milk.

When I saw Liana today, I also got a little surprise from her! She had the footprints card that told me happy birthday as well! This was actually the first set of little footprints we have gotten from Liana. They were so cute. Liana had her blood culture and spinal fluid taken today. I got to hold her right after her lumbar puncture (LP) and she seemed to really enjoy it. I think after such a big procedure she just needed to be held by her mommy.

Our specific prayers for Liana are: That the blood culture and LP would come back negative, that her brain ultrasound tomorrow will come back showing her brain is completely healed with no swelling, that she eats again soon and gains weight, and that she would get down to 2 liters on her oxygen (she is on 3 now). Thank you for joining with us in these specific prayers for our girls.

I also ask that you continue to pray for our friends Aimee and Adam Freeman and little Kayleigh. They have found out that their daughter needs surgery, but she is too small for it. Check out their blog to get the full story and how you can pray for them.

Another Infection

We found out today that Liana does have an infection. It looks like it is the same type of bacteria that Adleigh had. We think that they caught Liana's really early since she has been on the antibiotics one day and she already looks like she is feeling much better. They will take another blood culture tomorrow to see if the antibiotics have killed the bacteria. She seemed to be moving around a lot today and wasn't as touchy as she was yesterday, so I believe we will see it come back negative. Her head circumference last night was the same as the day before so the nurses were pretty happy with that. Overall, Liana had a great day despite having this infection. She is such a little fighter! I am amazed at how far God has brought her.

Adleigh had an amazing day today. I got to kangaroo care her which it had been at least 3 days since the last time I held her and she loved it. Wade said she kept trying to look up at me and she was smiling a lot. The time we had with her was the most alert we had ever seen her. She kept looking around and I think that she would look at me and Wade whenever we would say something to her. They started feeding Adleigh again. They were going to watch her very closely to make sure she is able to handle the food and they said at any point they might make her NPO again. So we are going to call soon and see how she has done the rest of the day.

NPO

I have no idea what NPO stands for...actually I just looked it up in our preemie book we just bought and it means nothing per os which is Latin for "by mouth." So anyway, both girls have being doing amazing they just had their food stopped. Their tummies were looking a little big so they did some xrays to see how it was going and it looks like they will possibly start eating tomorrow. Liana's heart rate was a little high and her hemoglobin a little low so they decided to give her some extra blood to give her a little boost. She seemed pretty peaceful when we were there today. They put her on some antibiotics in case some of those signs were early indicators of an infection. They did a blood culture this morning just to be precautionary and we haven't heard anything from that.

Liana's head grew a little bit, which we believe is just normal growth, but since she had her brain bleed the doctors are a little more cautious with this. They are going to check her head circumference daily to monitor it. Continue to pray for her healing and that this growth is just her becoming a bigger baby.

Wade and I had our first real date tonight since the babies have been born. We went out for my birthday (it is Sunday). I went with my friend Beth Brown's suggestion and went to Longhorns so I could have their awesome dessert. It was amazing! Our topic of discussion was our girls and how we can't wait to have them home with us. That day will be here soon and it will be awesome.

Wade and Liana

Wade got to hold Liana for the first time tonight! He loved it. Liana did amazing too. She really seems to settle right in and she doesn't want to be taken away. This is so big for her because she hated being messed with just a few days ago.

Both Liana and Adleigh had their food intake stopped today. Their bellies were looking a little big, but I think they will start them back on their food tomorrow. Liana went from 4 liters on her oxygen to 3 liters and she is doing great! Adleigh went from 6 liters to 5 liters. They are going to see how she does because she is still getting over the infection so they don't want to tire her out too much. Adleigh's blood culture and spinal fluid still haven't grown any bacteria! This is so awesome for her! I feel like the girls have had a great few days and I am so thankful! God has been so good to us.

I absolutely love this video of Liana.

Habakkuk

I had staff wives lunch today and we actually listened to 3 sermons this time. It was the sermon series on Habakkuk that Pastor Craig Groeschel did in April. Holly picked this out over a month ago and who would have thought it would be so timely for me. I got so many things from this sermon. The book is about going through a difficult time and not understanding why God is letting it happen but trusting in Him through it all. Habakkuk questions God and even wrestles with God on the issue, but comes to a place where he knows that God is sovereign.
These two verses really spoke to me.
LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy. Habakkuk 3:2

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights. Habakkuk 3:17-19

Both girls had great days today. Adleigh is looking much better. She had an echo today and it showed no infection had gone to her heart. She still has her PDA and it is small to moderate size so they are still just going to watch it. She hasn't had anything grow in her spinal fluid culture, this is such an answer to prayer! She started eating today. She weighs 2 lbs 11 ounces! She is getting to be such a big girl!
Adleigh being so peaceful.

Liana is still on her nasal cannula and doing so well. She moves up to 12 ml of food at 11 tonight. She weighs 2 lbs 1 ounce. She is just straight up chilling. We are going to try and let Wade kangaroo care her tomorrow and that will be the first time he will hold her! I love these two beautiful girls!

Loving our babies

I got to hold Liana today for 2 hours! She did amazing. She just got comfortable and she was loving being held. So tomorrow I guess I will let Wade get to try and hold Liana for a little bit. She had her last steroid shot today at 8pm and she moved up to 10ml in her feedings. If you think of where Liana was just a week ago you can already see God doing so many miracles on our girls' behalf.
Here is Liana being held by her nurse Darlania. She is so tiny in her hands.

Adleigh's blood culture came back with her still having the infection. She seems to be doing much better though. About two days ago she was pretty lethargic from the infection, but today I saw some of that fiesty attitude coming back. We still haven't heard of anything growing in her spinal fluid. We are so thankful for this! Wade got to kangaroo care Adleigh for a little while tonight and she loved it. Overall, both girls had great days today and we believe Adleigh is finally going to get over this infection.

Nasal Cannula day

I just want to start out by thanking everyone who has commented on our blog. It is so encouraging to hear that people and families are praying for us. I love hearing about other people's stories of healing and how they have been through what we are going through. These comments have been sources of strength and encouragement to Wade and me. Thank you!

Today I went to see Adleigh first. She did get changed from the crazy CPAP that looked like an elephant nose to the nasal cannula today. She liked it so much better and seemed more comfortable. This infection is really wiping her out. She had the spinal fluid checked today. They will watch the culture to make sure no bacteria is growing so this is a test that we don't want to hear anything back from for awhile! They put her on some more antibiotics...that makes 3 she is on. I have been praying that this bacteria would wither away and die.
Here is Adleigh not feeling so good.


Liana was also put on the nasal cannula today! Just a few days ago she was on the oscillator. She has come so far. She makes the funniest faces and she did a lot better with kangaroo care today. She had another brain scan today and the doctors said the bleed on the left side is continuing to clot and there in no extra fluid in the ventricles. They did see something in the right side of her brain that is either a very small bleed or damage done due to poor circulation when the bleed occurred on the left side. When the doctor told me, I just had this confidence that it didn't matter what the he said because God is going to do something completely amazing in her brain.
We can finally see Liana's face! It kind of looks like she has a little mohawk going on there.

Astounding Generosity

Church was awesome this morning! It was our cd release and Wade had worked so hard on that project so it was so nice to see the final product ready to be handed out. Pastor Steven talked about our story and Wade got to share the details of going to Cincinnati up to what we are going through now. It was a powerful time as Wade shared how we are praying for Liana and Adleigh to be completely healed and that God would move so mightily on their behalf that everyone including the doctors and nurses can only say that it is from God. At the end there was a time for other people going through very difficult circumstances to come to the altar (aka front of the high school auditorium) to pray their "sun stand still" prayers. Also, Pastor Steven decided to give all the money the church made from selling the cds today to us. He wanted to make sure we were taken care of during this time. Our church is so generous and we found out we received more money than we could have ever hoped for. I am in awe of how good God is and how He takes care of us and I am also in awe of how our church family bought cds like crazy to support us. I feel completely surrounded by a church family that loves and cares for us so much.

Liana had another amazing day today. She went down from being at level 6 on her CPAP to level 5 and was already around room air. She is now eating 5 ml every 3 hours and I think at her next feeding they are going to move her up to 6 ml. I got to hold her again today. It wasn't kangaroo care. It was just holding her in the blanket for about 15 minutes. But I got to see her face this way. She did really well. She seemed to settle in and all her vitals were really good.

Adleigh is still fighting her infection. The second blood culture they took to see if the antibiotic was working came back positive. So they took out her IV line in case that was the source of the infection and are trying to find out if they need to make any changes to her antibiotics. She was supposed to have her spinal fluid checked today, but they were unable to do it so I think it is going to happen sometime in the middle of the night tonight. It seemed like her symptoms were better today, but when Wade visited her tonight the nurse told him that she had a fever and she was having more bradys. By the way, I got to hold Adleigh in some blankets for about 15 minutes today. The nurse said that she thought she just needed to be held by her mom for a little bit and sure enough as soon as I held her all her vitals were great and she looked so peaceful.

We are praying hard for Adleigh right now. She needs to get over this infection. We are praying specifically that there will be no infection in her spinal fluid and that she will be able to fight off the infection in her blood quickly. Thank you to all the people who are joining with us to pray!

Doing Better

Today we found out that Adleigh's blood culture came back with an infection. They had already started her on the antibiotics and it looks like she is responding well to the medicine and she is having a better day. She was having fewer brady episodes and her temperature was a little better. She even had a bath today and was without her CPAP for 30 minutes and was doing great! Tomorrow they are going to check her spinal fluid to make sure nothing has gone into that. We are asking that you pray this antibiotic kills all the infection and that nothing has crossed over into her spinal fluid.

Liana had an exceptional day. She went from being at 60% on her oxygen levels last night to 30% today. At one point she was down to 25%. The goal is to be at 21% because that is the level of oxygen that you and I breathe. She is doing so well! I got to kangaroo care her again today. This time it went a lot better. She seemed to snuggle in but she kept desaturating so I could only hold her for about 30 minutes. She is eating now and is up to 4 ml!

July 4th for the girls

Happy 4th of July. I am having an early update today!

We went to see the girls today and Adleigh was having a bit of a rough day. She was having a lot of apnea and bradycardia episodes. They decided to check her blood to see if she was fighting an infection. The results we got back aren't crazy bad, but it is a little suspicious. They are doing a blood culture and we will see if anything comes back from that. They will check that every few hours until 48 hours or so passes. We are praying that they don't find anything and that she has no infection. Adleigh also got taken off the nasal cannula and put back on a different type of CPAP so that she could have a little more assistance breathing. When we were in there (when she was still on the nasal cannula) she had an episode where her heart rate dropped like 3 times back to back and I had to keep patting her stomach or feet to stimulate her and help her breathe and get her heart rate up. But now that she is on the CPAP she is doing a lot better.

Liana had a pretty rough night last night. She was desaturating on her oxygen a lot during the night and had to have her level put up to 100%. She also had a little bit of a fever last night, but they think that it had to do with taking her off her pain medication so fast. Today when we got there she had been weaned down to 60% on her oxygen and the doctor said that they would just keep her on the CPAP and keep seeing how she does. We continue to pray that her lungs get stronger and that she can stay on the CPAP at a lower oxygen level.

Thank you for the continued prayers!

A greater power

Can you believe Liana was on the CPAP today? Just two days ago the doctors were unsure of how she would do with her breathing and now she is doing so well. She is very sensitive to touch and sounds right now. The nurses told us that they are giving her as little stimulation as possible and we even noticed when we talked beside her bed her vitals would drop. So we decided to let her rest today. We are letting her get used to her CPAP and focus on breathing.
Adleigh is still on her nasal cannula and doing great. She does have some bouts of bradycardia, but that is normal for preemies. It gets a little scary though when a nurse tells you to stick your hand in there and pat your baby to make her heart rate go back up. We think that will go away around 33 to 34 weeks.
We have been thanking God for giving us such a great day. I read this verse today that really encouraged me.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles." And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said. 2 Chronicles 32:7-8
Later on you read that God sent an angel to annihilate Assyria's army once Hezekiah and Isaiah prayed for God to help them. I want to be strong and courageous through this battle that we have. There is a much greater power working in our girls than just the tubes and machines hooked up to them. There is the power of our mighty God who is helping us and fighting our battles for us.

One another note, the NICU has been a place where we have gotten to meet a lot of families. One family we are friends with now is Kayleigh's parents Adam and Aimee. Their daughter was born at 1 lb and 1 ounce and dropped to 13 ounces at one point. She is beautiful and you should check out their blog about her.

Today was Amazing

God gave me the best day ever! When we arrived at the hospital I found out that Adleigh's PDA opening is now really small. They think that since she is a little older it may close on its own. She is doing so well with breathing that the doctors want to do everything they can to avoid surgery. So we are going to continue waiting and we will see God close up that opening! Then we found out from the doctors that Liana had been taken off the oscillator and is now on the regular ventilator!!! God completely amazed us. We had no idea she would be taken off that soon. She is doing so well with all of the settings and they are weaning her off as fast as possible. They hope to put her on the bubble CPAP either tomorrow or the day after. I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am to God for bringing Liana this far so quickly. Just two days ago we were hearing from the doctors how her lungs were so sick and now with God healing her through the steroids she has progressed so fast.

Wade got to kangaroo care Adleigh tonight and he loved it. He smiled the entire time and when we put her back in her isolette I heard him tell Adleigh that holding her was the greatest thing he has gotten to do. Tonight he got to be a real dad. He held her for a whole hour.
Then to top everything off we went to go visit Liana and our nurse said we could kangaroo care her on the ventilator! She was very squirmy and I think the shirt that I had on wasn't the most comfortable to her so it didn't last too long. But just getting to hold my daughter (that has gone through so much) for the first time on her two week birthday was completely amazing. I was the proudest mama ever and I can't wait to hold her again. I can now say that after them being two weeks old I have held both of my daughters. Praise our gracious God! I can't believe how good He has been to us.

Answering Prayers

We had a great day with both girls. I got to do Kangaroo care with Adleigh and I held her for an hour. I finally felt like a mom since I got to hold one of my daughters for an extended period of time. Adleigh had the last dose of the medication to close her PDA at 2:30 pm and she will have an echo in the morning to see if it has closed. I really believe we will hear tomorrow that the medication was successful. Here are two pictures of Adleigh. She is so funny with her hands.

Liana is responding well to the steroid shots! Praise the Lord! When we went in there today she was down to 35% of oxygen needed on the oscillator. We are so thankful that the Lord is healing her lungs and making it a lot easier for her to breathe. We believe she will be off that oscillator soon. She also has been eating some. The past feeding she didn't digest, but it has been good to start the process of preparing her digestive system. Liana having MRSA has changed our routine quite a bit. We aren't supposed to go back and forth between the nurseries now, but I think that Liana's new spot is going to be much better for her. It is quieter than her old spot and darker. She doesn't seem to like much stimulation right now so this seems better for her. This is Liana and she has our new blankets under her.