Play Dates

Lucy has had a very busy week:

 - On Tuesday, she had her swallow study.  She looked like such a big girl during the study - dressed in her little pediatric hospital gown and sitting in a highchair to try her first bottle.  While a therapist fed Lucy milk of varying consistency, we watched an x-ray image of her esophagus/trachea to see where the liquid would go.  Unfortunately, the study results showed that she is not ready for oral feeding yet. The first few consistencies went right down her trachea, but she didn't even cough or gag, which they called a "Silent Aspiration" - not good because we wouldn't be able to tell by her body reactions when it happens.  When the liquid was thickened enough, she was able to get some into her stomach, but there was still a small amount leaking down her trachea.  On a positve note, she has great oral skills and does not have any aversions to sucking/swallowing, which some TEF babies have problems with.  The plan is to wean her off her oxygen, let her trachea/esophagus heal from surgery and ventilators and to re-assess in 3 weeks.  Meanwhile; she will continue to be fed through her G-tube into her stomach directly.

 - On Wednesday, she graduated back to the Graduate NICU!  We are so excited that she has so much more space, and roommates that are more stable and a ginormous crib that she can move around in and have all of her toys around her to play with.

 - Today, she had her first play date!  Carly is another baby in the Graduate NICU who is 2 1/2 months old.  Today, she came to Lucy's crib-area and we had tummy time together and practiced rolling over.  It was so fun to meet another baby up close (we had lots of doctors, interns and nurses visiting us to see what those two babies where doing on the floor of the NICU - too cute!)

 - We also had a visit from an old friend from MN today - Bonnie Olson was visiting her sister Kathy in Westminster (a suburb of Denver).  They were kind enough to stop by and meet baby Lucy and bring well wishes from all of her Prayer Warriors back in MN.

Over the next few weeks, Lucy will be weaned off of oxygen to test her stridor to determine if an ENT consult is needed.  She is currently down from 2 to 1.5 liters.  She will also have a follow-up echo-cardiogram to see how her VSD is doing and she will have another renal ultrasound to see if she still had reflux from her bladder into her kidneys.  We are definitely on the home stretch and are hopeful that our time in the NICU is down to weeks instead of months.  Please keep us in your prayers as we transition from our home in Colorado Springs to a temporary apartment in Denver and prepare to bring Lucy home and then move to MN in the near future.

Thank You all for your thoughts, prayers, gifts, cards and kind words.  We so appreciate the support and can't wait to be closer to so many of you when we move back to MN.  I have been especially touched by the little kids that remember Lucy in their prayers.  It's encouraging to hear about the next generation being raised up with Christian values.  My friend Ann sent me the below picture of her daughter's prayer book - you can clearly see "Baby Lucy" is included - melted my heart!