Dear People,

Today we are thanking the Lord for a peaceful day with our Lorena.

When we called in this morning early as we do each morning we were told that the iv on her other foot also started to leak however there was none of the TPN in this iv that gave her the wound/burn on the other foot. They also caught it very quick so that there was very little swelling. So they put the iv into her hand now. It seems that Lorena and iv's do not get along. It has caused her twice a collapsed lung this week and a big iv burn on her foot. We really thought we were going to loose her and can not begin to tell you the emotions we went through.

In contrast to the 1st week of her life this is a feeling like peace after a terrible storm. When we came in Lorena was sleeping ever so peacefully. Her feedings through the night had gone up to 4cc per hour and all was going well.

I had a little time with her and then it was back to pumping the breast milk again. This is important to keep up as it may go so well with Lorena that I will be hard pressed to keep up with her. Yesterday they had tried to lower her oxygen from 50% to 25% but she was starting to breath difficult then so it went back up to 50%. But when we came in this morning they lowered it to 25% while we could watch her and she has done well on that all day today.

Daddy is also settling into the hospital for the long haul and decided to buy a laptop computer so that he can be with us and work out of the hospital. This morning he was able to set things up and connect into his work. Off course mom and baby love to have daddy around all those recovery days.

At noon Lorena began to fuss and I got her out of bed and just holding her was the key. In all the 9 days of her life she has been held so little yet. Today she decided it was catch up time so I held her for hours and when I needed to pump Janita held her lots too. It was great to hold her little face to my skin as I did not have this opportunity yet.

Janita has seen so much of all the medical care going on that she has a new admiration for doctors and nurses. Before she could not look at a wound but now she is so interested that she is even thinking of the possibility to learn to be a nurse. Today she was allowed to hold Lorena's foot to dress the wound and she enjoyed doing this. Wow, can certain experiences ever change people.

In the afternoon we got great news that Lorena's feeding would go up to 10 cc per hour. This is great. Dr Eccles the surgon came by and also brought us good tidings. She said that because Lorena is a right sided omphalocele baby she has better chances of tollerating the milk and feedings much better. Because in Lorena's case her liver was more up rather then her stomac which is ussually th case with omphalocele babies. When the stomac is more up the milk does not stay in very well. Often these babies take only half of the ordered feedings and then spit up an other 50% of that. So it is really difficult to get them feeding right. Well today we learned from the Dr. that she is more hopeful with Lorena that this is not the case for her and so far the feedings have been accepted very well, no spitting up. In the afternoon her feedings went up to 10 cc and in the evening before we left her feedings were already up to 14 cc. What an answer to prayer. We truely feel that the Lord has carried her every step of the way. We know that all those many prayers of people all around have not gone unanswered as we do not understand how come Lorena is not crying and crying with so much she went through and with so many sore spots/healing wounds. How can it be that today she was so content and she did not even have any pain medication not even Tylenol. Even when the wound on her foot was being dressed she did not cry but slept through most of it. We know your many prayers are being answered for she is such a content baby and cries far less then my healthy babies did at that time.

Also the doctor told us that she wants to stop all iv's and instead feed her faster then ussual just so that nothing else goes wrong with the iv. If all goes well the doctor hopes to have her learn to drink from a bottle on Sunday and then maybe perhaps start to nurse her on Monday. Wow, this is much faster again then was first told us. She will however lose some weight in the next days as she is not getting enough breastmilk to grow yet and the iv is being stopped. Please pray that all will continue to go well and her little body will continue to take the feedings of breastmilk well as she so much needs this natural nurishment after living on iv's for most of first 9 days of her life.

Just before we went home they closed off the last iv that was on her hand which gave us a real piece of mind and we will sleep better knowing that no more iv's can leak in/on her.

We have seen Lorena hooked up to every hose, iv, oxygen, monitor and a ton of wires over the past 9 days. We have learned so much in 1 week about all of these but now we are happy that one by one she is shedding the wires and tubes. She is currently still on 25% oxygen and her heart beat and breathing is still being monitored and she has the tube for the breast milk running through her nose into her stomach. So to us she is looking quite bare with so few hook ups but we look forward to the day that she will be fully disconnected to anything and she can live and breath without any of these.

Today we want to thank the FFCA Staff & parents for making Jeremy's day extra special as he was send home with wonderful gifts for baby and parents and he got a nice dog and he was oh so thrilled.

Again we thank you all for your prayers and encouragements, phone calls, emails, cards, gifts, food, cleaning our drive way and offers to help. We have been touched by so much love and caring.

Visitors are welcome but please call to set up an approximate time as it is best to schedule between the times I need to do pumping. But please no one with clods or flues. We are at the Alberta Children's hospital on the 2nd floor in room 2116.

Love

Lodewyk, Rena, Janita, Jeremy & Lorena