Day 2 and things are good!

Wow. I just read everyone's comments, and as always, they brought tears to my eyes. Thank you all SO much for praying for our little family. For those of you whom I haven't seen on my blog before, I can't wait to go check out YOUR blogs, and I will do so soon, I promise!

How's Abby, you ask? She's great. A rockstar. But we already knew that. So far we have literally just been "hanging out". Except for a small heel prick to take some blood last night, it's just been life as usual. We are really just trying to keep her entertained in our little corner of the room. She shares it with a little boy...22 months old. I think he may be going home today or tomorrow...lucky him. And ironically, his Daddy is a firefighter too, so we've had lots to talk about.

Today is another day of just hanging out. We've pretty much moved the whole house over here. Boppy. Gymini. Bouncy seat. You name it, we brought it. Its the only way to keep her busy. She's not one to just lay around. She likes to be on the move. And entertained.

She will have a chest x-ray later today. She's been doing really well, considering she's been on a clear liquid diet for more than 24 hours now. I guess the "observation" is just simply measuring input and output and checking her vitals every 4 hours. Other than that, we just try to play with her. We are avoiding any walks or activities outside of our room because there are a lot of RSV patients in there right now.

All of the real excitement will start tomorrow morning at 6:30. She'll be taken to St. Joe's for surgery. It looks like they will be placing a central line in her neck. Ugh. It will have to stay in until we are discharged. Unless something unexpected happens, they plan to extubate her immediately after surgery. She will be brought back to the room and her pain will be managed with morphine. Then we just sit and wait. Sit and wait for poop. Who knew we would be waiting for such a bodily function to occur??? And with such excitement and anticipation, too!

So, I stayed with her last night and learned a little math.

Clear liquid diet = no reflux
No reflux = one comfortable Abby
One comfortable Abby = an entire night of peaceful sleep for baby!

That's right! I swear she had the best night sleep of her life last night. I put her in the crib at 8pm. She slept through a vitals check at midnight and another one at 4am. And I had to wake her up at 7am for a bottle and diaper change! She slept all through the night. In her crib. This clear liquid diet has really done wonders for the reflux. I know I still have to give her milk, but now I am wondering if we should try something different? Maybe soy? She is already on a specialty formula for allergies to cows milk. But maybe we need soy formula? Do they even make that? I'll have to call the pediatrician when we get home.

Well, that's the latest from here. I had to run to Starbucks to get on the internet, so I suppose I should be getting back to Abby and her Daddy. Here are some pictures from our first day in the hospital. Aside from the institutional, jail-like crib...things aren't so bad!

Waiting in the lobby to be admitted


Laughing at Daddy


Giving the crib a test run


"if you're not going to feed me, I'll just eat my arm!"


Playing the piano


Visiting with Grandpa Gary

He had to bring us baby wipes. Apparently wipes aren't in the CHOC budget. Diapers? Yes. Wipes? Nope.

I will try to update after surgery tomorrow! Thanks again, to everyone, for being so awesome! And if you don't mind, please keep praying. The hardest days are still ahead of us.