Dear Family & Friends,

Today January 30, Lorena is 2 weeks old already. She only knows life in the hospital yet with new people handling her every shift. We are however very thankful she is still alive as I often still think back to all the emotions we went through in the 1st week of her live. Remembering those feelings of despair, hanging on to hope and putting her into Jesus loving hands, it overwhelms me sometimes with such joy that she is still with us and we have been blessed to care for her. Yes, it is still hard at times and very tiring but it is amazing how much strength we receive to do what needs to be done.

Yesterday, I was in tears over the thought of having to put in the NG tube put today after having brought this burden also to our Lord in prayer I was able to do this with much confidence. Tomorrow we get one last practice and I want to be the one doing it tomorrow again. I want to know exactly what to do when we need to do it at home. Things went very well and I put the NG tube in right in the 1st try. Imagine with our first baby I cried when I seen them poke her little foot for one little blood test, now we have seen so much with Lorena that we are so eager to be able to take her home and we will do what ever needs to be done at home for her care.

Over night Lorena kept several of her feeds in but not all. They are now mostly feeding her 50% breast milk mixed with 50% formula and this seems to go not so bad. However over the past days each time they ran out of breast milk and had to feed her 100% Similac for the 9 AM feeding and each time she would throw up the whole works. Her little body is not tolerating those feeds of all formula at all. We are thankful that my breast milk has gone up some and today for the 1st time there is enough to make those 50/50 bottles for all her feeds including the 9 AM feed. Then I can bring in the milk I pumped over night again and hopefully I can keep enough breast milk coming for Lorena so that she can have the 50/50 feeds which at least don't get thrown up all the time. Some of the feeds are staying in but some she throws up part ways. However with the fortified milk (added calcium) they have been adding to the milk she has now grown instead of lost weight. We were so happy to hear that she gained 39 grams today and had 2 poopie diapers again.

We are hoping and praying that tomorrow again she will gain weight and that more and more of the feeds will stay in. Each time we are only able to feed a small portion via bottle and the rest via NG tube. Some feeds she will not even drink from the bottle then everything goes in via NG tube again. Each feed is a new experience as no 2 feeds seem to go the same.

We have also found it to be hard to deal with so many different nurses taking care of her. Each shift is a new nurse and each nurse has her own ways and the one says this and the other says that. One leaves us to figure things out on our own, one includes us in decisions and the other totally takes over and mom and dad's wishes are shoved to the side. This is starting to wear on us, so we are glad that they are teaching us how to care for her our self so we can do more our self during the day. Perhaps if they see us taking good care of her they may send us home earlier..........we hope.

We want to thank you for sending us emails and words of encouragement, each day I find email messages from different people. Please understand that we can not personally answer these emails as there is not enough time in a day for this but know that this is much appreciated. Thank you also for the emails send via the Alberta Children's Hospital's website. We got an other 3 delivered to our room (2 from Zeeland, Netherlands and 1 from Australia). Today we also want to thank the FFCA staff at Jeremy's school for making us some wonderful food dishes. Also a thank you to the ladies at Woodgreen Presbyterian church for making us casserolls. We can not begin to tell you how wonderful of a gift this food is to us. There is no time to cook and yet we are able to pull a nice nutritious meal out of the freezer each day to take to the hospital, so we all can enjoy a healthy supper. We are very touched by all those taking the time and effort to help us in this way. I think Lorena is too.....see her smile below.

Thank you all for your continued prayers for Lorena's recovery.

Love Lodewyk, Rena, Janita, Jeremy and Lorena