February 11

I got an unexpected surprise today when I went in to visit Elsie. The nurse, whom I'd never met before, asked if I wanted to hold Elsie while I was there today. It caught me off guard, because I wasn't expecting to hold Elsie again until they changed her bed, like they did on my birthday. But heck yes, I'd like to hold her! When the nurse saw that I was confused about being able to hold Elsie, she explained that as long as Elsie is stable with her breathing and the respiratory therapist is available to help move her, we should be able to hold Elsie when we want to. Hooray! So I donned the hospital gown and got to hold my little sweetie for about an hour. And she did great. Her oxygen levels were in the 90s the whole time I was holding her, which means that she was comfortable and happy. Her breathing was strong and steady. Maybe we need more snuggle time to help her get weaned off the ventilator . . .

Speaking of being weaned off the ventilator, her lungs are still not progressing with the help of the steroids like the doctors would like them to do. She's not getting worse, just isn't getting significantly better. So they are going to send a sample of her lung mucus (mucus that is suctioned periodically out of her lungs--yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory) to the laboratory to see if there is any kind of infection or problem inside her lungs. They will also do another echocardiogram to take an inside look at her heart and lungs and see if they can see any problems.

Elsie graduated from the super tiny diapers to the next size up, which are ridiculously huge on her, but I guess the nurses thought that she was getting too big for the tiny ones. Just to give you some perspective on how small the diapers are, here's a little picture for your viewing pleasure.

The diaper on the far right, next to the measuring tape, is the super tiny diaper, the one that my sister thought was a breast pad the first time that she saw it. The one next to it is what Elsie is wearing now that seems ridiculously enormous on her. The green one next to it is a size 1, and the huge one on the left is Evje's size 3.  So you see that slowly but surely, Elsie is growing. She is almost up to 2 whopping pounds, at which point, there will be some kind of celebration in the Sagers family. It's been about 5 & 1/2 weeks since Elsie was born, and we are still surviving. Thank you all for your continued support and prayers!