Kara Update - Saturday Evening

Jeremy & I got to go in to see Kara together for a few hours today. It was her BEST day yet. What a blessing! Jeremy got to hold Kara. She was still laying on a pillow and had all her cords everywhere... but still, Jeremy was so happy to get his baby girl in his arms.

While she was in his arms, it was the first time we've seen her completely relaxed and asleep. (Or at least a natural sleep where her mouth was totally relaxed and open).

Then, later she had some other "firsts" - those of you who've had newborns will relate, if you haven't - sorry if it's a bit "T.M.I."
* First hiccups (since in utero... she had tons in utero ;)
* First time with eyes open (about 25 minutes. WOW! And her respiratory rate remained stable. Until now any "awake" meant distress)
* First bowel movement with Mommy's milk - yay, Kara! That means you can have more milk and less I.V. feeding. She is being fed through a tube in her nose. Once her breathing is more stable, they will start to work on getting her to coordinate sucking and breathing.
* First 12 hours without extra morphine. Since this is the case, they can now lower her continuous morphine drip. She is at 30 mcCg right now, and the max they lower per day is 5. She needs to be off the ventilator and morphine before we are transferred out of Children's NICU, so we estimate at least another week.
* Oxygen is now at 21 (room oxygen! No supplemental). So the ventilator pressure and supplemental oxygen are both at the lowest level, now the breaths per minute just needs to be lowered until the Drs. think it's low enough before extubation.

Please join us in thanking God for the blessing of holding our baby and seeing her beautiful BLUE eyes (we weren't quite sure until today). We are so thankful for the support of our family and friends. We are a bit strained and feel like we have to think through every hour of our time, but we are not more tired than any other family with a 10 day old. When one of you tells us you are praying for us, we are reminded that it is God's strength that is holding us up and we no longer "wonder" at how we're doing so well, we just thank God for His sufficient grace.