Well it is official I have been abandoned! Actually Mom and Dad took Gavin home to their house as I am now almost at the hospital full time. I just came home this evening to shower and take a nap.
Bronwyn is a great latcher but eating is very hard for her. She wears out so quickly. She just doesn't' have the stamina that other babies have. She wakes up often and have very brief feeding times. I am still so amazed at how well she is doing but I guess I realized by today that she is along way from being able to be fully dependent on breast feeding. They have continued the bolos feeds but at half the amount as she was throwing up with more. She is such a little trooper. I had a pretty anxious night as I knew she wasn't eating enough and she was hardly peeing.
The team is still very impressed with her progress and we haven't ruled out half breast feeding and half bottle. I would really like not to have to worry about tube feeding her at home. But it may be the best way. And if its the best way I will do it.
It is still a little early to tell. My big concern and anxiety at this point is that the feeding pattern that we establish now will be the feeding pattern that she has at home.
As for sleeping in the hospital - it was great. The other patient in the room was discharged earlier in the evening so I had the room to myself (and Bronwyn). Except that house cleaning came in about 1 am to clean. Fabulous! Super time to clean - with Javex no less.
I am already missing my little boy. But it has been great being at the hospital full time with Bronwyn. I am learning how to do her meds and they have taken her off all the monitors and only check her periodically. So I am getting more comfortable with her care.
Please pray for Quinn and his parents Kim and Ben as they have a meeting tomorrow to re-assess his treatment plan and decide what course of action to take.
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2 comments:
Roberta,
Wow it is so great to hear how well Bronwyn is doing, she is still in my prayers. And i miss Gavin sooo much! I can't wait to see him again. You'll have to send me that video of him..
my e-mail:
shaunamae@shaw.ca
take care,
Shauna
I received an email last night and it reminded me of Bronwyn. I thought it was quite appropriate. Our loving God is wrapping his arms around Bronwyn and keeping her warm & safe. "Safe in the Arms of Jesus" Hope you like the attached email. Crystal
A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. She was still groggy from surgery. Her husband, David, held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news. That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency Cesarean to deliver couple's new daughter, Dana Lu Blessing. At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it," he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one" Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Dana would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on. "No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away. But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. Because Dana's under developed nervous system was essentially 'raw,the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Dana struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl. There was never a moment when Dana suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Dana turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later, though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero, Dana went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted. Five years later, when Dana was a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life.
She showed no signs whatsoever of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she was everything a little girl can be and more. But that happy ending is far from the end of her story. One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Dana was sitting in her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ball park where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing. As always, Dana was chattering nonstop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, little Dana asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Dana closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet. It smells like rain." Still caught in the moment, Dana shook her head,patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No,it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Dana happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along. During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Dana on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.
"I can do all things in Him who strengthens me."
We are truly blessed to be apart of God's family. I hope you feel God's peace & presence around you daily as you deal with Bronwyn's daily recovery.
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