Baby Bella day 6 cont..

She is nearly 5 days old now, wow, it's great to start talking about her age in days (I can't wait to talk about her age in weeks and then months very soon!) Baby Bella is so precious. Today was the roller coaster ride everyone keeps telling us about, with the highest of highs and then you reach the top and start to go down the large drop and fear takes over. I will go more into depth in a second, but I can't help but to tell you all what I am seeing! I see signs everywhere, signs from God, showing me that there are so many people who care and are loving and praying for my little angel. The nurse that has taken care of her a lot is named Jennifer Fox, for those of you who don't know Jennifer is a friend of mine who started at COP at the same time as me. The Dr. that took care of her as she was born and was so amazing explaining things to us at first was Dr. McDonald, a good friend of mine at COP is Aaron McDonald and Saturday was his birthday, but on Friday he received a gift from me and was in contact with me right after the birth, then Dr. McDonald walks in and helps calm us down and explains everything to us. Cynthia, Cameron's wife (another very close friend at COP), left us an uplifting email and posted a comment on this blog, that night our nurse was Cynthia, and she was the one that weighed Isabella when she gained weight! The Lord is constantly showing us his greatness and sometimes we simply need to slow down our lives and look around and appreciate the beautiful world that he has created for each and every one of us. I hope that Isabella touches your hearts and helps each of you find the joy in your life, because she has given us so much in the last 5 days. Sorry about that, it is something that I have been thinking about and wanted to express. Your friendships and love mean so much to us!

Baby Isabella has been having breathing episodes and they discovered what it was. They ran an ECG to see her little heart and it showed a small murmur in the heart. She has a PDA in her heart which is essentially a small hole in a blood vessel in her heart. Because she hasn't developed completely she needs some medicine to help the heart finish developing thus closing the hole and allowing her heart to pump the oxygen into her body. They will administer the medicine every 12 hours for 36 hours. After that she will have another ECG to see if the treatment closed the hole. We will pray that the treatment works so that she can be strong and they think that she will come off of the respiratory after this is taken care of. So when I left her a little while ago she was breathing 21% O2, that's normal room air. So she has the potential she just tires out because of the PDA in her heart. She had to have the mask put back on her and the light turned on to prevent her jauntus, so in the picture she looks like she did a few days ago. Just after she was given the first treatment for the PDA the Drs came by and again looked at her talked about the PDA and then said other than that she appears to be progressing great, the Chief of the NICU called her a 25 week old superstar!! That made me smile!! Also some more good news. Machel and I have found an apartment here in VA, only 5 blocks from the hospital! (Speaking of signs from the good Lord, the apartment complex we are moving into is still under construction, but they are renting out some apartments this winter and spring while they finish up the complex. They posted them last week in the classifieds and we went to see them and we got a great little 1 bdrm, brand new never been lived in.) Finally, Machel's mom is going home tomorrow morning and my parents are driving up from Florida today and will be here tonight. I want to thank Isabella's grandmommy Kathy for coming to her side, for being here by our side and for loving us so much! She cried, she laughed and she brought some normalcy into our lives this past week. Special thanks to Kyle/Nicole/Adam/Stephanie/Jennifer/CMC for making it possible for her to be here, you guys are so amazing. Machel talks about you like family and I see why, you are not co workers, you are more than friends, the family environment you have is truly heartwarming. Special thanks to Donny/Eric/Mike/ALL OF COP (my Midland, Bartlesville, Houston, Alaska friends) I read all of your emails, I gain strength from them and I appreciate the love and family environment you provide me too!! You will always be in my heart, often you are unhappy at work, the job is tedious, sometimes monotonous, but the friendships you make are what get you through the days, and we should all remember how great our co workers truly are. Smile a little more at work, say hi a little more, because those people will be there with you through thick and thin; they are our families during the day and just like my family, sometimes we argue, laugh, cry, disagree with one another but we are always there for each other, never forget that.

Well, here are some pictures of our baby, her grandmommy at her side, nurse Jennifer mommy and myself.