Finding Patience

Greetings, everyone.

In just a couple of hours, Elsa and Jonas will be four weeks old! We are starting to notice how much they have both grown and changed. Their pictures from just a couple weeks ago look so much different than they are now. Elsa has tufts of dark hair growing and Jonas has long blond eyelashes! Elsa is getting stronger. She has pulled her ventilator tube out a couple of times over the past few days. This keeps the nurses running, but they are really impressed with her strength! Both kids are 'tolerating' their feeds and are getting 3 ml an hour. Elsa is doing so well on her nutrition that she no longer receives additional fats. Milk does a body good!

On Wednesday night, Elsa did decide to give us all a little scare. She had two seizures during the night. When we called in the morning this news was rather scary and startling to hear. The doctor met with us later in the afternoon to get us up to speed on her night and the news of the day. Elsa had another brain scan done because of the seizures to see if there was some connection. Apparently there are many reasons for seizures in premmies and this was done to start ruling out causes. The doctor indicated that the brain scan suggested that there was some healing occuring by the blood clotting and beginning to disappate. The seizures may have been some misfiring in the brain while it heals. There are no certainties but we were stunned by potentially good news! I think we both felt very nervous in the long walk from the car to the NICU that morning and were expecting to hear the worst. While we were with her yesterday and today, Elsa was stable and allert, looking at us with her big eyes.

Jonas began his steriods treatment for his lungs on Wednesday. Since then he has gone back and forth on how much sedation and oxygen he has needed. He was up to 96% oxygen for much of the day Wednesday, but today was in the 25-35% range. He has actually been moved down a little bit on his vent support which is good but it is still too soon to know if the steriods will be the ticket. While sedated he tends to retain a little bit of water. This impacts his weight but even if we add a bit for the water, he is looking chunky! He is right around two pounds and growing.

In some ways the past four weeks have flown by. It is amazing to see all the changes. We know we still have many months ahead of us in the NICU. We are finding ways to be patient for the future as we continue to pray for strength and health in each coming day.

God Bless,
Dan & Mari & Jonas & Elsa