Some of you are wondering why I would take time out of each exhausting day to send an update. This has in fact been a great way for me to get my sleep at night. After each days events just to write things down helps me to cope. I also hope to go back to these emails in the future as all seems like a blur at times. However we have been blessed by the knowledge that many people are in prayer for Lorena and us and heard that these updates are appreciated.

Today started out as a peaceful day. Lorena had done well through the night and the drain had been closed with the hope of removing it soon. All went well and no more air or fluids appeared behind her lung. She was breathing nicely on her own and her heartbeat was very relaxed again. She was receiving breast milk through the tube into her stomach yet again. This is great because today Lorena is 1 week old already and has had very little real food. When I came in she was sleeping ever so peacefully. What a great way to start the day!

Then as I was in a side room to do the pumping (Lorena must have breast milk for her recovery of the omphalocele surgery) Lodewyk came with the news that yet an other complication was found. Now her foot and leg were very badly swollen. As our hopes had risen with her recovering from the last scare now our moods sank yet again. How much can our baby endure? Not yet recovered and still having the drain in her body, which causes a painful wound in her chest now her leg was not only very puffed up but her foot is badly damaged by what they call an IV burn. After the iv did not work in her neck they put this next iv into her right foot. This iv leaked and caused all the swelling and the burn on her skin. Oh, baby how many more wounds will have to heal on you? Yes, tears flowed again. I feel so helpless as a mother. All I could do yet again is hold her hand and rub her head and sing and pray.

The plastic surgeon was called in to check the iv burn and he is not sure but is hoping that it may heal on its own or else he will have to do some skin surgery for her. I asked the doctor if there was any connection between 2 iv's going wrong in a row but he just called it bad luck. However the Lord knows why and we know that He holds her in His hands and he will take care of her. We pray that she will get the strength to go through all of this and we pray she would not have too much pain. They can not do anything about the swelling at this time and it is hopefully going away with time. The leg and foot was much more swollen before I took the pictures as some time passed and some of the swelling came down a bit. All of this is yet an other set back to her feeding as well as all the breast milk feeding was stopped immediately yet again. In the morning arrangements were made to move her out of ICU (intensive care unit) later in the day, but that too was canceled and she will be in ICU until she has over come this again. Later in the day I actually gathered enough nerves together to watch them take away the tube in her chest it was about 10 cm long into her body that they pulled out. That wound has dressing on it and hopefully no infection will occur on any of her wounds so she is on antibiotics and morphine once again.

 

Yet, before we went home we were more calm, our little Lorena is a brave and feisty little girl and she has fought through so much already in just this 1st week of her live. The Lord her creator, who created her so perfect and beautiful has her life in His hands.

 

We decided to leave earlier this evening as we are so extremely exhausted after a week full of emotions like we have never experienced before. Also we need to try to get home earlier and leave earlier in the morning to get Jeremy to school on time. It has been hard on the other kids too and we can see that Jeremy really needs our attention badly as he has been with wonderful friends for the 1st 5 days but he is starving for mom and dad's attention and rightly so. Tonight we came home and I took time to cuddle with him in our bed and let him tell me his events and that did him a lot of good This is the sort of thing I like to work into the days ahead as we need to continue to function as a family. Janita has this whole week off from school so we get some time with her in the hospital which is great.

 

 

We want to thank everyone yet again for their prayers, hugs, gifts of understanding, food, baby gifts, cards, flowers and encouragements. Today again we enjoyed a wonderful homemade meal with some wonderful folks from church. We also had more visitors come by. These gifts of love are so much appreciated.

 

Visiting is allowed, also with the baby for a short time but only those who don't have colds or flues or anything like that. However we would appreciate it if you contact us and set up a time if you like us to visit with you a bit. As I have a schedule to keep for pumping the breast milk that Lorena will be so much needing on her road to recovery.

 

With Love