Mary Cate day 5

Mary Cate is enjoying her 5th day of life and Brigit is enjoying her 5th day of being off bed rest. I am so sorry for the lack of blogging in the last couple of days I have sat down to write the update five or six times and just got side tracked with other things (As you can imagine). So here is the latest update on my Mustaine women (I LOVE writing that). Lets start with the smallest and work our way up.

So first up is Mary Cate and she is doing very well!!!! Her breathing is great, she has progressed down to 21% oxygenated air (which is just room air) and 45 breathes per minute (at the beginning it was 60 bpm and she was getting 30 to 35% Oxygen). The other really positive stat about her breathing is that she is matching her breathes with the ventilator’s breathes. The next step for her in the breathing realm is to come off the ventilator, which can’t happen for a while. All of her blood gases look great, she is off the photosynthesis light (which helps with Jaundice and the skin) and she got her first little bit of milk from Mom today (so hopefully that goes well). So she goes from sunbathing to eating some liquid food for the first time (I think that is an upgrade).

The only small concern that we have right now is the CT scan on Wednesday and Mary Cate had a heart murmur this morning. Which is a symptom that is attributed to one of the blood vessels used in facilitating breathing while she was inside mommy not completely closing up. She doesn’t have any of the other symptoms that suggest she needs surgery though so we are hoping and praying that the murmur is just that vessel closing up on its own. If not they will have to go in and do heart surgery. So we are praying that surgery wont be needed but if it is we are in a great hospital with great surgeons. So overall Mary Cate is fighting hard and being a strong little rock star.

Next up is Brigit; she has been doing really well too. Labor went smoothly and not as painful as expected (at least that is what I understand because I just watched the whole process. THANK GOD!). She was discharged on Friday evening so for the last two days we have been traveling the 10 minutes back and forth from the hospital to grandma Mary’s house. It has been a little difficult for us to leave Mary Cate at the hospital and go home but we are handling it pretty well all things considered. Brigit got to change Mary Cate’s poopie diaper today (Which made me so proud of both of my girls). Brigit is doing well settling in to her new role as mommy and doing a fantastic job with it.

Thanks again for all your prayers and please keep them coming. We don’t know how we are making it through this world wind of an experience but everyday we wake up with a restored sense of peace and assurance that God has little Mary Cate in the palm of his hand and that He is in control. We also know that this feeling is because of God’s abounding grace for our family and because of the prayerful support of this wonderful community of believers that are lifting us up in prayer. Thank you so much!