Dear People,

Today we spend an other Saturday at the hospital with the family and it has become like our second home. We have gotten quite used to spending our days and evenings here. I think it will seem strange if we are allowed to go home, to not have to spend the days outside of our home anymore. We have become very familiar with everything now and have practically taken over from the nurses. We take care of Lorena all day and evening including diaper changes, bottle & NG tube feeds as well as giving her vitamins and of course giving her all the cuddles and love that the nurses can not give the same way.

Today we are all very thankful that Lorena has taken her night feeds of 50 ml every 3 hours quite well. She only spit up 2 times a bit of each feed. She also was able to drink about 40 ml from the bottle and the rest was fed through NG tube. This is the biggest amount she has fed by bottle yet, so it is showing progress in her learning to drink from a bottle too. Lorena is able to start pacing her self better now too when she drinks from the bottle. This is important as the more she guzzles the more chance of a spit up happening. Throughout the day she drank most of her bottles empty or almost empty and only spit up some once. Everyone (including the doctor) was very thankful that she gained 45 grams today. We were so glad she did well through the night and we hope she continues this trend over the next nights as this may mean that we may be going home with Lorena next week.

Lorena was born at 6 pounds and 15 ounces and she is currently 15 pounds and 8 ounces. So she is still currently (17 days old) at less then her birth weight.

In the last days we discovered that Lorena has an extra little in dent/hole above the little crack in her bum. I thought this was the epidural site but when I showed the doctor today it became clear that she was born with it. This could mean that her tail bone is not fully developed yet. So the doctor has ordered for Lorena to have more ultrasounds done to see if this is the case with Lorena. It could also just be a little indent in her skin but the tailbone being okay and fully developed. At least Lodewyk is trying to keep some humor in it all and he said " well I guess she has her inny/belly button on the back instead of the front". Seriously however, we do of course hope and pray that her tailbone is okay as we so much do not want anything else to be added to the the list of difficulties she has already experienced. We will have to wait until Monday to find out. One thing is for sure, they could never mix up our baby with an other because our Lorena has so many markings and identifications now that I could make a list of them.

As I am writing this, close to 9 PM, Lodewyk is giving baby the last bottle & I still need to pump before we go home . I still am not able to find time to have any naps in the day, and with the full days and the waking and pumping through the night every 3 hours I am really tired so I am keeping this update shorter today. Still it turned out to be close to 12 before I send this message from home as the other kids needed some extra attention when we got home. So much for getting them off to bed on time.

Please continue to pray that all will go well and Lorena can come home soon.

Love Lodewyk, Rena. Janita, Jeremy and Lorena

  Trying to burp a sleepy Lorena.

It is too comfy on mom's shoulder.

Oh, oh, please can I hold her, please?

Lorena in the new hat she got from the hospital because they lost her cute yellow hat.

I wish they could take that blob of tape off of my cheek!

Lorena is my name but the nurses call me sweetie pie or princess.

In mom's arms is the best place to sleep.

Eye to eye, nose to nose.

Just checking out that "tweenkie" little nose on my "tweenkie" little sister.