What a Week!

I apologize...someone else really should be doing this blog for me! I am horrible at keeping it updated every day! There isn't always news everyday, or very big news. Sometimes it's just things like Ira's breathing vent has been changed, they either higher or lowered it, or her blood gas count was either good or bad...so there really isn't a whole lot to say all the time. But, I know that there are many of you that want/like to know day by day updates like that, so I will try my best to do that and if it's not every day, it will be every other! Someone text or call me to keep me accountable for this!! :) PLEASE!!! :)

Anyways...here goes our week! Hold on to your seats! It was a crazy one!
{Prepare to see how amazing our God is, and how much he listens to our many prayers!!}

Monday and Tuesday were the only days that didn't make our heads spin! They were normal...or whatever normal is...not sure I know what that word means anymore! :P There doesn't seem to be anything normal about my life right now! Wednesday was when all the excitement started!!

Wednesday, June 22nd
{Ira's 2 WEEKS OLD!!}
Showing up and seeing Ira for the first time since Monday, meant I had to give her a full look over and make sure everything was looking okay! (Not that I have any clue what I'm looking at when I look at the wires and tubes and etc..) So, I began pulling off blankets and unfolding her arms and legs a little bit just to get a good look at baby, and I'm sure my grandma Flora thought I was going to hit the floor, but when I pulled back the blanket from off her lower belly a bit...my eyes probably got the size of baseballs and swelled up with tears of pure joy!!!  I saw a bag!!! A BAG ATTACHED TO HER....FULL OF POOP!!! The bag was catching her poop!! You know what this means!?!? It means she's pooping enough to start the next trial process to see if the surgery was successful!!! They said that this was a huge step! It's not the kind of stool that they can use yet to put back into her body through the mucus fistula, but it will be soon because of being on breastmilk. So they can't use the thick, dark, tar like, newborn baby stool, they need the more liquidy poo. Other than the poo bag being attached, they upped her feeds to 2mL rather than 1 per hour! Praising Him for answered prayers!!!!

Thursday, June 23rd
Everything with Ira was about the same, they decided to move her rates around a little on the breathing vent because her blood gases weren't the greatest after the morning test. For those of you who don't know what blood gas count is...it's a test they take by poking her heal and using the blood to see if her body is getting out all the carbon dioxide she takes is while breathing and this morning wasn't real great, so they moved her vent numbers around and by that I mean they moved them a little higher to help her get the carbon dioxide out! Other than that there wasn't anything wrong with Ira....its was me! :( Thursday evening I started getting really bad chills and we figured out I had about a 101 temp, and obviously after surgery that's not real good...that's the first sign of infection....soooo yeah, fabulous...right!?!

Friday, June 24th
I got into my OB as fast as I could that morning hoping and praying it wasn't an infection. I got something really similar to how I was feeling this time, last time after my c-section with Ada, and that time, all my breast milk went away with in the 3-4 days that I had the fever. So, needless to say I was praying so hard that my milk wasn't going to go away this time because I know just how important it is that Ira gets breastmilk. It's so important not only for development issues because of being so premie, but also because eventually they were wanting to put her stool back into her, to finish the natural route! So, I was praying hard! In the mean time, I called the NICU to try and see how Ira was doing, hopefully I'd hear some good news and it would take my mind off of the situation at hand. They had some good news for me!! They moved her feeds up to 3ml per hour, and she was doing great with her breathing!!!  Well the excitement only lasted so long, because of course, I get to my doctor and they send me to Kettering Hospital! (I promise I'm just going to keep a hospital bag in my car forever...not just child birth...apparently I have a thing for Kettering Hospital!) We arrive and go into the ER, and there we find out after X-rays, CTs, and an ultrasound, that I have an abscess or small build up of liquid on the inside of my uterus. Treatment for this is either surgery to get it out, or 3 rounds of IV medication and then a week of oral medications at home. Well, they gave me one round of IV medication and held off until my OB decided whether or not it was serious enough for surgery. I waited with 2 IVs, one in each arm, no food or drink and on complete bed rest for 8 in a half hours to see if I was going in for surgery. Thankfully, no surgery, that night but I was admitted for the night for observation and the other 2 rounds of IV medications. The next morning was technically the final yes or no on the surgery, and if I was getting discharged, even though doctor was pretty sure I wasn't going to need surgery.

Saturday, June 25th
6:30 a.m. my OB came in after reading my blood results from my 4:30 a.m. blood draw, and said, "Go Home!"
Hallelujah! I am so far past DONE with hospitals it's not even funny anymore! After Ira Jo gets out of the hospital...It's going to take a good long time before I even want to see another hospital! We get home and about noonish I get a call from the NICU.
"Hi, Mrs. Sink, I'm calling with an update on your daughter, Ira Jo!"
"Oh, great! How is she doing!?"
"She's doing good! Just wanted to let you know how things have been going so far today. We went down on her breathing rate to 30 this morning because her blood gas count looked great! We also might mess with her feeds just a bit, her belly is getting just a bit swollen from the feeds, so we might bring it down just a bit, but she's handling feeds great! So, that's not a for sure change yet, but she hasn't been spitting them up or anything so that's good. But, I also wanted to tell you that we are going to go ahead and take 1 ml of her stool out of her bag,  and put it back into her mucus fistula to try and get that part of her bowel working!"
"You mean your going to try and get her to have her very first poopy diaper!?!?"
"Yeah! That's exactly right!"
"OH MY WORD!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!? That's AMAZING!!!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!"
At this point, I am crying, my child, Lord willing, will have her very first poopy diaper soon! Might I add that everyone else who received the news from me after the phone call, received it at a much higher octave than what I received it! I was just a smidgen EXCITED!!! Needless to say, that was a great way to make up for the overnight stay at the hospital! What a HUGE answered prayer!!

Thank you all for helping us pray for these things!!! We are so thrilled with the progress that has been  happening, and we know all the praise be to God!! What a loving Father we have! Again, thank you for all the prayers, we appreciate it so much!