Sweet Precious Girl

Well, so far so good for being off the vent. Monday night, she was a little hard to settle - but I am guessing no harder than any other infant that has had an empty belly for the past several days. She woke up about every half hour to an hour, we would settle her down, and repeat. She must have actually really fallen asleep around 1am because the next thing I knew, my 6am alarm was going off. The nurse said that she had started settling herself whenever she would stir, which is wonderful. Yesterday, they took her sedation back down some - she is now off her Versed drip and down to .8 on Dex (from 1.0). They did an echo of her heart, which showed that she has good function of the heart, although there is a slight amount of valve leakage. They have weaned her high-flow nasal canula (the breathing tubes that sit in her nostrils like in the movies) down to room air (meaning it is shooting the same amount of oxygen we get at her) and only 4 liters (not pumping as much of it at her). All of this is good, as it is bringing her closer to being able to breath with no assistance whatsoever. Her oxygen saturation is sitting around the 80s with the current high-flow settings. To give a little perspective, in an average person 95%-100% is considered normal. According to the Mayo Clinic, below 90% is low and considered hypoxemia. Katie's goal is to be 75% or above.

The best thing about yesterday was that I was able to hold my little Katie-bug for most of the afternoon. She definitely likes to be rocked and was asleep for hours in my arms. It was wonderful to be able to look down and see her little angel face. We pray that she continues to improve and that she doesn't have to go back on that big mean ventilator. We are very much looking forward to the day we get to take her home and hold her without any cords, wires, and tubes attached to her.

We also got to have dinner and visit with our heart friends, the Clarks (http://www.heartofteammurphy.com/), yesterday  near the hospital. It is always such a blessing to get together with them and our other heart friends, the Williams's (http://www.babytrentwilliams.blogspot.com/). There is nothing like getting to talk to friends and fellow parents who have a unique ability to understand what we are going through at the moment, since they have been through it themselves. We can't wait til Miss Katherine is old enough and well enough to play with her friends, Trent and Murphy!