Ounce by Ounce

Things are good in the NICU world here in Guatemala, Harper has had consistent weight gain for over a week and is putting on about 1/2 ounce to an ounce each day which is great. She's now eating 2/3 of her milk from the bottle and they're slowly increasing that.  We feel blessed beyond belief of how well she's doing and are still amazed (but not surprised) at God's provision of our needs during this time.  As of yesterday, Harper weighed 3 lbs. 14 oz. and hopefully during today's visit we'll hear that she's 3 lbs. 15 oz. just one ounce shy of four pounds! (It's amazing how our perception of size has changed--we go into her room each day and say, "she's so BIG!" but she still doesn't even weigh 4 lbs.)  We can see a noticeable difference in the thickness of her legs, her face, and the size of her toes.

We are visiting her 3-4 times per day: 6:45-7:15am, 8:00-9:00, 1-2, and 7-8.  We can hold her any time after 8am.  It is beautiful to hold her and sing to her, she gets so calm and cozy.  Though we enter her room exhausted from the last 27 days, we leave feeling refreshed and energized.

Good news came on Monday from the doctor that she should be home in 8-10 days if all continues on the same track. Yikes! So that means possibly by middle of next week we'll have our little baby at home.  Thankfully we were given a baby shower this weekend and another one tomorrow so we're a little more stocked up on things we'll need.  We continue to pray for her to fight infection, build strong lungs, breathe well, strong brain development, and overall good functioning of her body.  Now that she's soon to be leaving the hospital, we're praying for our abilities to care for her as parents and not freak out that she won't be on constant supervision by a trained medical professional. Also, for breastfeeding which is slowly starting this week (2 minutes each side, twice a day), we pray for success with that.  We can't thank you enough for your love and support, it has made the most incredible difference in this whole situation.

Here are some pictures from the baby shower...

Preemie onesies are the cutest things in the world, but she still probably can't fit into them. 

Lyla and Erin did a fantastic job planning the shower--complete with fancy marzipan favors with "Harper" written in chocolate!

Tortoise puppet from Aunt Linda, I'm already so excited to use it.