February 22, 2010

Warming...



Today was a good day. Plain and simple.

It started with Rylie coloring a picture for baby Jaden. What a good big sister. This pic now hangs in Jaden's hospital room.



Today, Jaden officially ended her cooling period, and at 6am started the warming process. This process gradually, over 15-30 hours, raises her temperature back to a normal 98.6 temp. When we first arrived, it was a bit hard at first because it was obvious she was more in tune and aware of her surroundings. Her morphine (a.k.a happy juice) was now illiminated, and she was clearly more uncomfortable with being in this hypothermic state. Nevertheless, she did fabulous. As she is warming up, she is acting more and more like a typical newborn. Baby J wants to eat all the time today and sucked on her passifier a bit (a great skill.) She is strong, wiggly, and had several times of extended alertness. She is yawning, sneezing, squaking, cooing. I know these sound so normal, but we have not seen much of this over the past 72 hours. Really our entire day was spent just gazing at the beauty of this little wonder child...singing, praying, reading over her. Loving every minute together.



A verse that we will hang in Jaden's hospital room for the rest of the week is: "The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you withhis love, He will rejoice over you with singing." Zeph 3:17

The best news of all, is that by the morning she will be all through with her warming...if all continues to go well through the night. This means that we will be able to hold her...which I believe we will do all day long, to make up for lost time. We cannot wait for this. She also we start to try and eat, which is a key skill that will reveal a lot of how she is doing.

The main "hiccup" was only how we started the day...with the news that though her respirator was still off, she did stop breathing three different times. Yikes. Fortunately she corrected herself two of the times, and needed help one of the times. However, she has been breathing great all day, and the Dr's attributed these episodes to the morphine that she is being weened from.

There was certainly a strong middle part of the day, that was characterized by the NIC Unit around us. There are struggling babies all over, and infact, the little baby right next door to us was getting baptised, right before he was flown to another facility. His parents crying and full of sorrow. Oh the fragility of life. The blessing of getting to have babies, even though we know heaven is a better home. It was hard to see such pain. Our lives are changed on multiple levels with this whole experience.

The Dr's and nurses that are caring for Jaden are wonderful. The Dr. that came in the middle of the night to help Jaden, when she was a few hours old, came and checked in on us today. We had a great long converstaion with her. Dr. Ryan. She is a God-send, so kind and gentle and wise, and truly was used by God to save Baby Jade's life, by making the call to cool her. We praise God for her.

Another aspect of today...Jaden has not been able to be touched really at all up to this point. However, tonight they did pick her up to weigh her for the first time since birth. She was gained an ounce! But it was obvious, she did not liked being touched, which is very typical for babies who undergo this procedure. It will be something she will grow to love, because this is what allows her to be fed!



Through all of this, we have been blown away by the love and support of everyone. From Granne, Angie and our college staff watching Rylie, to daily Bible verses from Lou, to coordination of meals and other helps from Jane, to Granne packing up our home, to Courtney for shopping for a washer and dryer for us, to Nana and Papa Walker flying out to help with all the transition, to my college staff signing up to clean our apartment after we move, to texts, e-mails, calls...and to prayers, prayers, prayers. We feel so unbelievably loved. This little Jaden has showered us with blessing through you all, and we cannot thank you enough. We are totally humbled, grateful and blown away. The First Pres Family is undescribable. What a congregation of love. Simply incredible.

We praise God for all that is changing in us...and even more with all that is transpiring before our very eyes with Jaden. She is doing well. We know we are not out of the woods yet, but we feel like we can see through the trees, and it is a hopeful sight. Jaden has some big milestones to conquer this week,and some big tests to come on Friday (Physical Therapy and MRI), and we find ourselves prayerful and hopeful. PLEASE KEEP THE PRAYERS COMING.

The bottom line today is...as she has warmed her body, our hearts have been warmed as well. It was a good day. Thank you for your love and support. Can't wait to see what tomorrow will bring. Holding our babe for the first time!!!!! Did we say that she is just about the cutest thing we have ever seen? And yes, she looks like her big sister, which means she looks like her dad, and not like her mom...AGAIN. At least Chad is cute! Ha!

Off to bed...
The Flete Fam.