Friends

Well, I am definitely going to begin counting down to the end of 2010.

Travis and Bonnie, friends of ours from college went into labor yesterday.  They gave birth to their 3rd child, second son, at 1:48 this morning.  James Fulton was born without a heartbeat and was not breathing.  They were able to resuscitate him.  It was a home birth, so they took James to the hospital by ambulance.  He is in the NICU, where Charity was for her first 9 days, in the new wing of St. Francis Hospital currently.  It sounds like he will not even be held for several days.  They do not know the extent of any problems at this point.  Bonnie keeps up a blog for them: http://learningtobeanewlywed.blogspot.com/.  It has a few more details of what all is going on.

Please include them in your prayers.  I know that they would appreciate any and all prayers they can get.  I cannot know what they are going through, but I will say that I have had several flashbacks already of Charity's first few days.  Prayers definitely help!

CB

Doctors Appointment

This past Thursday (September 9th) Jamie took Charity to her follow-up appointment with the surgeon.  The surgeon looked at her bottom and saw that it was no longer infected so he removed the PICC line from her arm.  We finished administering medicine through it Monday, so there wasn't much of a need for it anymore.  Charity has another appointment next Thursday just to see if things are still going well.  Charity weighed 9lbs and 5oz.  She is definitely growing!

Charity is now producing stool like a normal baby.  She will be two months on Monday and is developing very well.  She is beginning to actually play with her toys and responding to different sounds.  She can hold onto things, including her rattle (at least for few seconds before she drops it).  She also smiles a lot more often.  Hopefully we are fully done with this and we can enjoy our baby girl!

Thank you all for your continued prayers.

Things Are Turning Up Roses

I haven't had a whole lot of time to update the last few days, but a lot has happened.

First of all, Charity is HOME!!!

A few days ago, the surgeon mentioned putting in a PICC line.  What he did not mention was that he wanted it in so we could take her home.  The PICC line procedure took place Tuesday.  It was to last 1-2 hours.  Of course, Charity decided that it should last 3 hours instead.  Unfortunately, we didn't know what was going on for that extra hour, so it was a long hour.  For some reason, we were not able to get any updates about the procedure.  Jamie and I were both kind of freaking out because we had no idea why it was taking an extra hour.  Apparently, the nurse practitioner performing the procedure had some issues trying to find a good enough vein to use for the PICC line.

In the end, the PICC line was in, so things were looking up.  They had to keep her in over night to be sure that everything went well.  Yesterday, we had just a little more stress to be sure that we were on our last nerve.  When the nurse went to give Charity her medicine, it did not go in right away.  We were both holding our breathes.  If the medicine did not go in, she would stay in the hospital.  Luckily, they found out that her arm just needs to be kept straight in order to receive the medicine.

So around 2:00 yesterday, we were able to take Charity home!!!  It was great!  Of course, we got stuck in a traffic jam, but at least we still had her in our van once again.

Last night, Jamie and I enjoyed our first night in our bed (the first night in almost a week in any bed for me).  Charity also got to enjoy her night in her cradle once again.

Charity does need to get antibiotics through her PICC line every 6 hours.  A home health nurse came to our house last night to show us how to give the medicine.  It is definitely a 2 person job!  From now until Monday, we will be giving Charity her antibiotics at 6 am, 12 pm, 6 pm, and 12 am.  We will have about 5 hours to sleep in between the night cycles.  It takes about 15 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to give the medicine (we have a pump to do this), and 5 minutes to clean up.  Of course, Charity also needs to have her diaper changed and be fed during this time as well.

Jamie will be taking Charity to a follow-up appointment with the surgeon next Thursday.  Hopefully, that will be end of this whole nightmare that has consumed Charity's whole life at this point.

I know that Charity could have been much worse off, but it still has been a long 7 weeks since she was born.  She already looks much more relaxed and seems more interested in the world around her.

Again, thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers.