Heart Rate Drop Prayer Request

Okay, we missed yesterday's blog, been a crazy week. We have started to realize we are getting a little exhausted, driving back and forth to the hospital, but still totally thankful for God's work in Stella's life. She has been doing really good the past 2 days. They took her out of the incubation unit and moved her to a regular NICU crib! Which was such great news, because that is the last "bed" she will move to before she comes home. The biggest concern in the crib is Stella keeping up her body temperature, this can be hard for babies, especially under 5 pounds, and they could start burning calories if they are having to work to hard to keep up the body temp. But our Stella is doing quite well with this, she is staying right at 98 degrees. Her weight is progressing, she is up to 4 pds 4 ounces, back at her birth weight! She seems to be putting on about 2 ounces a day. She is up to 45cc's a feeding and the Dr. put her on a bottle every feeding!! I got to feed her for the first time last night but we got soooo excited we forgot to take pictures!! We enjoyed the moment and Jared got to burp her. (He was jealous that I got to feed her but I reminded him that burping was just as important! haha)

We did have a minor setback last night that we are asking prayer for. She had a heart rate drop at 1:40 am last night, her first one since last Friday. We are trying not to be discouraged. Her last caffeine shot was Monday at 4pm, and they say that after 72 hours it is completely out of her system. They should start a 7 day countdown home tomorrow but we are not sure what the decision will be since she did have this drop. They could possibly hold off a couple of days now. We learned last night also that if she happens to have a heart rate drop during the 7 day countdown then they have to start the countdown all over!!! The nurse told us last night that even if they are on day 6, if they have a heart rate drop it starts over at day 1. So our major request now is for NO heart rate drops. As much as we want her home, most importantly we just want these to stop! It is crucial for these to stop in order for her to come home. We want her healthy but we selfishly would like her home with us as well.

Today Stella is 36 weeks old, if she happens to have anymore heart rate drops after 37 weeks they start to do other tests to see exactly what the cause is. With most babies they should just go away now and we hope our baby is one of these.