Dear Family & Friends,

Today is the last day of this month already. Just one month ago we were celebrating new years eve and had all these wonderful dreams of having baby and staying not an hour longer then necessary in that hospital. We had already mad wonderful plans for the 1st weeks at home. Lodewyk was going to treat mom like the queen and take care of mom and baby as much as possible so that mom would recover well and enjoy the 1st week with baby to the fullest. Little did we know what was all awaiting us.

Both doctors and nurses were surprised to hear that the ultra sound technicians had missed the omphalocele. In most cases they would catch this and both doctors and parents would know ahead of time. In this too I have seen how the Lord takes care and I truly am thankful that we did not get to know this before she was born. We would have searched the internet only to find out that with this condition many other things can be wrong with any organs, hear or nervous system. They might have been able to let us know about the omphalocele but they would not have known ahead of time what would all be wrong with her. .I am not sure if I could have been able to bear the thoughts of all that during my pregnancy. As it was my blood pressure was already to high so such huge added stress would not have helped. I look back on a wonderful pregnancy and I thank the Lord for this. Lorena had a lot of hiccups in the womb and it was just 1 month ago on New Years eve when we had some friends and family over that I wanted to share this awesome feeling of baby moving with the hiccups with my sister in law Ali. She felt baby kick at her hand as she put her hand on my belly. Today, 1 month later she was finally able to hold Lorena in her arms. Lodewyk sister Ali has been a wonderful support to us through it all, she rushed to ICU when we called to let her know that Lorena had taken a turn for worse. She sat with us for hours and visited us so much. We are thankful for her support. Lorena had a lot of hic-ups before she was born but she also has a lot of them throughout every day still.

Last night Lorena had been spitting up lot and lots again and so this morning the feeds were changed. To our relieve they were starting to feed her 36 ml every 2 hours instead of 54 ml every 3 hours today. This was working wonderfully Lorena today as she drank almost every (all 5 we gave)bottle completely empty with only a few small spit ups. We were feeling better about this as she was keeping more in plus we did not have to feed her very much through the NG tube which is much more time consuming. By late afternoon however the doctor came in and told us that they were worried about her weight loss as today she lost 50 grams. Therefore the milk needed to be more fortified so that hopefully she will gain weight again. Each day we come in and her feedings seem to be different all the time. We have abandoned the idea of feeding her in her bed again and now I bottle feed her on my lap with lots of little stops as she seems to want to guzzle it in the beginning and does not yet know how to pace her self. After burping her, the last smaller half she is more tiered and she is able to drink slowly. So today we were very thankful that she was taking almost all the bottles completely as this is an accomplishment for her. Now we hope all will go well through the night as well for her feeds.

This morning I was able to put in the new NG tube and had no trouble what so ever and now feel very confident that I can do this at home too without guidance. Still I am ever so carful as things can go wrong. The most important thing is to draw out the stomach fluids to check if it is in right and especially before NG feeds.

As you can tell from the pictures Lorena is wearing less medical gear. Today the dressing from the chest drain was removed and it had healed so nice with only a little scar to add to her collection of scars. They also removed the iv which was no longer being used but was still there just incase. So now she has 2 medical gear free hands for the first time in her life. Imagine that, no more tubes etc. hanging off your hands, your hands and fingers can move freely for the first time. It was a joy for mom to see those 2 little hands free of everything too. However, Lorena is a quick one and has already tried to pull the rest off of her face, so we do have to wrap those hands in the blanket or use the little mitts when we are not holding her.

I have been pumping every 3 hours through the night as well for days now and can not seem to find enough time in a day & night to get much for sleep. In the hospital most nurses try to get us to do everything now so the days are so full with no time for naps left. Some nurses are a little more thoughtful but there are also those who push us. So this evening we wanted to leave on time to get the other kids to bed on time but the nurse insisted we stay to feed Lorena one more time. she said it doesn't take long but we already knew it was going to be an hour later again before we could go home. It is during these days of running on so little sleep 5 - 6 hours in 3 stretches that I wish there were more hours in a day. Each morning however I am so eager again to rush to the hospital to be with Lorena and to see how she has done through the night. With the other babies I thought getting up every 3 hours through the night to nurse was hard to do but now I realize how easy we had it with a healthy drinking child.

Again I want to thank all of you for your continued prayers, your visits, food and goodies you have made us, your gifts and words of encouragement. Today we especially want to thank NorTel & Lodewyk's manager for the flexibility with his work as well as covering some of our food expenses. Lodewyk & us are thankful that he can be with us in the hospital and yet do some work when he can. Today Lodewyk was able to interview a student right in the children's hospital as they are looking to hire an other student again at NorTel.

Love

Lodewyk, Rena, Janita, Jeremy & Lorena