Giving Thanks

Even through these most difficult days, Neil and I feel incredibly blessed by the love of friends and family. We are doing o.k., grieving for the loss of Sawyer, but hopeful for the future. It has been very comforting for us to read your posts and emails and know how much our family is in your thoughts. We will get through this.

We have probably become the nurse's worst nightmare though. We are so concerned for Zoe that we are calling and going to the hospital to check in on her a ton. Yesterday, she started to struggle a little bit on her CPAP. This is very common after a couple of weeks doing the work herself. Babies her size typically just get tuckered out. The doctors think she is also having more apnea because as her feeds go up in quantity, her growing stomach pushes on her diaphragm making it a little bit more difficult to breathe. They did run blood tests on her anyway and they came back normal so that was a huge relief.

I also got to hold her for the first time on Thursday which was very nice for both of us. Research shows that babies that do skin-to-skin time with mom and dad do better in the NICU so we will be doing that as often as we can when she's stable. Neil and I both think she knows us now. We talk to her through her glass castle and she looks over toward us with big eyes. She is still growing well, although she is not quite at the 2 pound mark.

Thanks again for your support. It means a lot to both of us.