Isabel's second day in the hospital

Well, we are concluding Isabel's second day in the hospital and will be here at least until tomorrow morning. Our baby girl is still not back to her spunky self, but we have seen much improvement through the day today. On Wednesday, when I would try to feed her anything orally, she would throw it up. I started with an ounce of Pedialyte, then an hour later a milliliter, and then tenths of a milliliter, and she could not keep it down. So, the doctors told us we could just stop trying, because she was getting all the hydration and sugars that she needed through the IV, and her tummy was still very upset and needed a good long rest. So we stopped trying to feed her anything from 11 am Thursday until we saw the doctor this morning (Friday) around 9 am.

Our doctor today was Dr. Williams, and after reviewing Isabel's charts and speaking with us, she gave me the clearance to go ahead and start trying to nurse her in short, frequent stints. She said that breast milk is about the best possible thing we could give her right now (God's perfect food, in my opinion!), and she would not have given us clearance to start trying formula (too hard to digest). So, we had AMAZING SUCCESS today with nursing. She nursed 3 minutes at 10:15, 3 minutes at 11:45, 5 minutes at 1:15, 7 minutes at 3:00, took 1 oz breast milk (BM) from a bottle at 5:00, another 1 oz of BM from a bottle at 6:00, and nursed 10 minutes at 8 pm. She has kept every last drop of it down!! Praise God! She also had a couple of two-hour-long awake times today (much better than the 10-15 minutes she was able to stay awake yesterday and the day before), and even though she was not nearly as energetic as she usually is, she was definitely holding on to toys a couple of times, and was very curious about her IV "club" on her arm (as we like to call it) and the IV tube. She had to put in her mouth a couple times to taste it. All good signs that our curious baby is in there somewhere! She also has started to babble a little, mostly "mamamama" in the sweetest little voice like she is trying to tell me how pitiful she had felt while she has been sick. She also says "nynynyny" as it gets to be about 8 pm (she did this both Thursday evening and this evening) and I am convinced she is telling me she wants to go night-night.

Today during her awake times, I have held her in my lap (she lays across the Boppy because it is more comfy and allows me to not jostle her as much which is easier on her tummy), sang songs to her, read children's books and Psalms to her, and we have watched a couple of Baby Einstein videos (a treat for her because she doesn't really get to watch videos at home!) Today is all about passive play, and baby steps in the right direction until the day when she is back to her crawling, rolling, pulling herself up to a stand and getting into everything self!

The prayers and well wishes of our dear friends and family have been MUCH appreciated and felt deeply. Thank you so much and please continue to send them up to our heavenly Father.
We will keep you all posted via e-mail or this website.

Blessings to all!