Home at Last -- Jan 22, 2008

First of all let me tell you how therapeutic it is for me to type. While mommy and daddy are loving their girl, I'm down at the clubhouse, typing on the 'puter. I hear how much all of you love to hear the updates and what is going on, so who am I to let you down on our day to day journey??We brought our girl home today. We were going to get to go home "early", so we were there with bells on at 8:00 am. Well, at 3:00 pm our exhuberance was waning. :) We had the most incredible nurse today, whom I lovingly dubbed "Nurse Ratchett". She BOSSED me and grammie. Can you even believe it? And we listened to her pronto! :) She made sure that we knew how to feed Laynie and told us exactly how long and how much and not to wear her out, etc. And everything she told us worked. After watching Lacey feed her at 11, she pulled a chair up to her, and looked deep in her eyes and said "Lacey, you are an amazing mommy. You learned how to do that in one try. It took me ages to figure out how to feed a weak baby, and you did it the first try. Lacey, I want you to remember something. When Laynie stops eating, it won't be because you didn't know how to feed her. It won't be anything you did, because you are amazing." I wanted to kiss that bossy old bat right on the smackers. I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face, because at some point, Lacey will remember that bossy old nurse telling her that, and she will take comfort in it. BUT FOR TODAY, she is doing fantastic. Now that we know that she just flat wears out when she nurses, we do it for her. Her job is to latch on the nipple. We then massage her jaw for her and help her suck. We alternate her jaw and cheek and let her swallow. She is a two man operation. When she just poops out we wait a minute and tap the end where a drop will fall in her mouth and she opens her eyes and says "Hey, DINNERTIME", and off we go again. Imagine a victory for us is 26 cc's in 30 minutes. (that less than 1/2 oz.) That is climbing the mountain. I'm telling you people, we see beauty in the smallest things. Life is different now. A yawn, a smile, a sneeze. Amazing things. Grammie really held her today and got to "nuss" her, and the tears came today. There are few people that can hold her that aren't moved to tears. She is that incredible.The neurologist head came by today (our girl is a celebrity, I am telling you) and told us that if she makes it through the next few weeks, we might want to do the MRI. We aren't really willing to do that right now, the last thing we want to do is sedate her. Besides, we know all we need. The opthomologist head came by and looked in her eyes. She isn't blind. She has very small retinas and very small corneas and the optic nerve is small, but they just match all the other small things inside of her. Speaking of small, I went to Walmart tonight and looked for preemie things and those preemie things still are HUGE compared to what we need. I will take a picture of her in her preemie onesie tomorrow and post it, so you can see how teensy tiny she really is. I bought cabbage patch clothes. They are stupid, :), but I thought, Hey, what the heck? It made Lacey laugh out loud, which is what I wanted it to do. "For dolls 12-14 inches long". That's what she is. I have NO IDEA where they came up with 18". Unless they stretched out her arms. That girl has some arms now. Just like her lolly. :) Oh how we serve an awesome God. "He gives and takes away", has been on my heart all day today. Sometimes prayer changes things, especially in the people saying those prayers. We have been so ultra blessed today. We brought our girl home. We propped her up on a rolled up blanket to make her tall enough to get the straps on her. She had 2 receiving blankets holding her sides and had a blanket under the buckle to give it enough bulk to hold her in. Pretty great stuff. God smiled at our effort. Nurse Ratchett knew just what to do. She cried alittle and handed her over. I'm telling you... Laynie touches everyone who sees her. When our precious time is over, what wonderful incredible memories we will have. Thanks so much for all your prayers. Never stop praying, we've all learned how to pray constantly the last few months, let's never stop. Laynie would want us to never stop. Because.....

Learning how to Feed Smidge

God is Good.. all the time.