Baby Bella Day 26

Baby Bella is such a little trooper. She is doing well on the conventional vent, she started to do real well after mom and I visited and she got her new Zaki. (More on that below) Her blood pressure was a little high, but stable and her heart rate was staying between 160-180. So all in all she is doing quite nicely. In the middle of the night her stoma, one of the pieces of bowel protruding from her belly, released a small smear of poop! This is a very good sign and indicates that the bowels are trying to start working again. Once she has some significant discharge from the stoma they will put a bag on the stoma to collect the waste. Right before the doctors came for rounds a nurse practitioner came over to talk to us. We had never seen her before, she is with the pediatric surgery unit and wanted to talk to us about Bella's PDA. Since most of the swelling has subsided from the laparodomy, the chest xrays show that her lungs contain an increased amount of fluid. They believe that the PDA is causing this to happen and also causing her to have some saturation and pulse swings from time to time. Rebecca, the NP, went over the ligation procedure with us to make sure that we understood what would be done. This is a much less invasive surgery and even though it is around the heart is less risky than the laparodomy. They also do the surgery in the NICU and don't have to take her to the OR. The entire surgery takes about 2 hour, most of which is prep time, the actual surgery itself only takes about 15 minutes. They make an incision between the 3rd and 4th rib and make their way to the ductus near the heart that remains open. They clamp it with a little staple and then close her back up. By closing the ductus less blood will flow to her lungs and more will circulate throughout her body. They are hoping that this will allow her to breathe better and that she will be able to come off of the ventilator sooner. This should also help her stabilize a little better and allow her to continue to grow with fewer complications. We were a little apprehensive about another surgery so close to this last one and I asked about a dozen different questions. The doctors and nurses answered all of my questions and assured us that they thought this was the best course of action for our Bella. We were reassured by the answers and signed off on the ligation. It will occur Monday morning and hopefully if all goes well and she continues to heal from her laparodomy as well, we will be feeding Bella some mommy milk in about 10-14 days! We spent most of the rest of the day just watching her and then we made a quick trip to Barnes and Noble and Hallmark to get a little gift for Bella's neighbor Cherish. Cherish really needs our prayers and is fighting for her life, so please pray for her tonight as well!!

We received some more packages today and I must say everyone has been so amazing, generous and thoughtful! Adam, your note was awesome, but the UT stuff was not! (Except for the little monkey, that is way cool!)

[Note from Machel: Like Chris mentioned, we received two packages today. The first we received was from Aunt Clara. She included some Julio's chips for Chris and my all time favorite dried apples from Central Market. The other thing in the box was an adroable bunny that she obviously made. Clara is super crafty and I know loves to sew/make stuffed animals. Thank you so much Clara & Ace. The second package was from my extended family in the CMC Seguin office. This package was full of ALL kinds of goodies and cards. Thank you all so much for the well wishes and items you enclosed! Take care, God Bless and can't wait to see you!]

Also, this weekend we will probably be taking a lot of pictures with Bella and a lot of her new stuff. (I must warn a lot of people who read this, she has a lot of UT gear already, so you can skip some of the pics!) She will be decked out with some A&M, UT, UVA and other clothes and blankets that she has received from her many, many wonderful family and friends!

Here's our baby girl with her Zaki!!! She absolutely loves it!!! Mommy and I slept with it last night and her nurse Taylor got her in a nice snugly position and then placed the Zaki on top. She was asleep and SATing very well!! THANK YOU SO MUCH CANDICE!! We hope that the last week with Rhys at home has been amazing!!