Beautiful Baby Bella is 1 week old!!!

Thank you Lord for this amazing gift! Thank you to everyone who follows this blog and everyone who prays for our little angel and for all of the love being sent to the UVA NICU.

Today was a very big day, (I am sorry that we have not written all day, but we were very preoccupied with Bella and getting our apartment set up. Also, every 2 hours or so Machel has to breast pump which seriously hampers what you have time to do. And after she pumps we usually go up to the NICU to see Bella and read to her, so we only ever have about an hour to do all of the things we need to do. The nurses and Drs up at the NICU know us and everyone says hi to us and actually have told us that we need to take a break and sleep occasionally. I said, not a chance, we sleep our 5 hours at night (although last night I slept almost 7 hours, I crashed!). We enjoy our time with Bella so much, we bought her the children's bible and read it to her, the story of christmas, bedtime stories, and like 5 more books that we haven't gotten to yet. We reread stories a lot!

Sorry I was off on a tangent, back to the health of our little angel. So today Bella got her echo cardio gram, a head ultra sound and an xray. The results were mixed. Her PDA in the heart showed up as still being moderate. The original prognosis was moderate to severe PDA, so the medicine seems to be working slowly, they are going to put her on another 36 hour cycle of it. May the Lord watch over her and help heal her heart, Bella's heart is very small and fragile, but the love and joy she has brought to this Earth in the first week of her life is tremendously big! The head scan showed no further bleeding, she still had the slight grade 2 bleed, but it is all contained and they think that there will be no more danger of bleeding in her brain. They keep telling us that grade 1 and grade 2 bleeds are minimal and don't necessarily lead to any brain function under development or future development problems, but they can't guarentee anything. We are so happy that she is alive and defying the odds that we know that no matter what happens she will continue to surprise and amaze us with what she can accomplish and the odds that she will constantly defy! The xray was taken as a precaution because she had to be suctioned and was having some more breathing episodes. They still say that it is because of the PDA that she has the episodes and they hope that this next round of treatment clears up the PDA so they can take her off the respirator.

We have signed a lease for a small 1 bdrm apartment 7 blocks from the hospital, close enough to walk! We are buying a futon and a mattress and a desk and that's about all that fits in there. Luckily it has a washer and dryer and internet so we can wash our clothes and get on the computer and work. We will take pictures of the apartment, but it is 3 rooms that are 10x10, a bedroom a kitchen/bathroom/with a washerdryer/and the family room. We are actually very happy to have a place so close to the hospital, being in a college town rental housing is very difficult to find.

I want to again thank you all for your love and support, your prayers and well wishes. May the Lord shine his light down on all of you and your families and friends.

I want to leave you all with something powerful....Machel was reading the baby bible to Isabella and the last thing she read was Psalm 23, the Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want......It is so powerful and amazing and simple yet complete. Please reread it and feel its poweful message.

Thank you all and may the Lord be with you!