It's been awhile since the last update but we finally have a little news to share!
(more to come regarding this post!)

Other than the countless amounts of fun new visitors Ira Jo got to meet this week,

Ira's over all game plan has changed a little, but lets start at the beginning!

Tuesday (7/5) - Ira Jo finally got to meet her Uncle Jenson for the very first time, and although she has met her Aunt Sean before, this was the first time Aunt Sean got to snuggle her for a bit! 

Friday (7/8) - {1 MONTH OLD!} I can't believe she's 1 month! It was a bit harder than I thought it would be seeing her turn a month old and still be in the hospital, but my baby is where she needs to be, and for that reason I will choose JOY! My baby is alive and doing great at 1 MONTH OLD, so I have many reasons to celebrate...but miss Ira Jo celebrated her 1 month of life by getting some hugs from her great Aunt Becky!!

Sunday (7/10) - [FAMILY DAY!!!!] The first time being together all four of us...the first time feeling like "our little family"....best feeling ever! Not going to lie, I had to fight back so many tears walking into the room with Ada Lou to introduce her to her baby sister for the very first time. Ira was finally switched over to a crib, so we could put Ada right in the crib with Ira, but it definitely was not the way we thought we would be introducing our girls for the first time, but it was still a special moment. This was the first time, the feeling finally set in that I have two girls and they are sisters, and they will one day (hopefully) be best friends...we will one day be a complete family, under one roof, at one supper table, together. Can't tell you how hard we are holding on to that one simple word, 'Togetherness'. It seems like such a distant goal, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel approaching slowly, but we are so badly longing for that 'togetherness' in our house, as a family, but we are growing in our patience and lets be honest...we have two girls that are 17 months apart...some patience will one day be greatly needed, so growth is good! Just a few hours as a family was amazing for us, gave us an extra push to keep going because we know what will soon be coming! :) We are excited for that day, but we will be patient!!

 "The pain that you've been feeling, can't compare to the joy that's coming" Romans 8:18!! :) 

Gods' gentle and loving reminder

Monday (7/11) - We got some really unsettling news...Ira is having a really hard time putting on any weight and keeping it on. She's been growing very little, but she's also been losing enough weight that it's not equalling out. Unfortunately, that means there is going to be a bigger delay on the second surgery, but it also means they are going to have to start reinserting her stool from her ileostomy bag, into her mucus fistula. The first plan was that she wasn't going have any stool reinserted at all, and they were going to go ahead and do the second surgery and reattach her bowels because her body was using the nutrients from feeds correctly. But the amount of feeds had to go up to accommodate her weight, and the more volume she got, the less her upper bowel could keep up, so they have decided it's important to reinsert her stool, so that her lower bowel could continue to get the nutrients, and hopefully that will allow her to gain weight faster and keep it on. The upsetting part of all of this is, in order for her stool to be reinserted into her lower bowel, they have to replace her mucus fistula with a bigger one. Thankfully, this is not a surgical procedure, but she will have to be taken to specialist that will do this procedure under x-ray. Ira's surgeon reassured us that it shouldn't hurt her at all, he said that your intestines don't have any feeling so that wouldn't hurt, but they will be pushing and messing with her belly, which could cause some discomfort. Worst case scenario, surgeon said they'd have to sedate her and put her back on the vent if something went wrong, but he was pretty sure it would be a very easy process that would take an hour tops to complete. I did ask him why they couldn't just wait and do the reconnecting surgery anyways, because her bowels would then be together and her body could get the nutrients that way, and he said that if they would open her back up and her bowels still be swollen from the first surgery that they would not hold any sort of stitch and they would just perforate again, so we would be right back to where we started. I did learn that it's not the inside of the bowel they are concerned with...its the outside of the bowels. Apparently, the inside of the bowels don't swell or don't swell as bad as the outside of them do! Odd, but good to know! He told me that they don't even consider opening a premies' stomach back open to mess with bowels unless they are a month in half to two months old, but in Ira's case, the head surgeon during her surgery was so surprised with how bad it looked inside that he wasn't really open to doing the second surgery until closer to the 2 month mark...we are only a month in, so we have a bit longer of a wait. But this surgeon told me that we should be thankful because he has seen bad bowel issues and Ira wasn't the worst, but she was up there. He said that her bowels were like concrete, and that it could have been much worse than what it was, and that he was honestly surprised that it wasn't worse. All of this is such a God thing, and it's been amazing to hear what he's done on the surgical part of things and also see what he's doing on the recovery part as well.

Today, Tuesday (7/12) - 11:05 am...we are waiting for Ira to be wheeled away to the specialist for her mucus fistula change. She was suppose to be taken at 10:30 am, but there was another patient who had a complication during his change... (not what mom wants to hear right now!)
12:00 pm...Ira Jo is being wheeled away
1:20 pm... Ira is back. Bad news. Plan back fired. The mucus fistula tube was not only completely clogged, it is stuck. Good and stuck! So stuck the radiologist doctor was to nervous to continue, and chose to wait on the surgeon to get out of his surgery to discuss a plan B & C and so on if needed. The radiologist unclogged the mucus fistula so they can use it, but it's really small so it will probably get clogged again really fast. So the radiologist said in his opinion they will have to sedate her under General Anastasia, which means she goes back on the breathing machine vent. The same vent that took her a month to get off of! :(

Wednesday (7/13) - Still no set plan for the mucus fistula. They did decide that the tube was way to small to feed anymore stool back through, plus the top of the tube fell off where they would even access to the tube...so now there's just a random little string like thing hanging from Ira. The surgeons fellow did, however come to see me and explain what the doctors were sort of thinking. By what he said, they are not leaning towards sedating her with General Anastasia because if they did that,  he said they might as well just reattach the bowels and she would be able to get all her nutrition through her bowels by herself. The bad part about doing that right now, is that she's not even 6 weeks post surgery, so they honestly have no idea how low the swelling around her bowel is, and if it is still pretty swollen they could do the surgery and it would work, but it would set her back a bit because recovery would take a little longer. So they are between a rock and hard place right now. Their main goal at this point is to get Ira to gain and hold her weight. They did say that today she gained 36 grams, which is awesome, and if she continues to do that, then they can continue the plan of waiting another week or two to do surgery. Unfortunately, her weight hasn't been showing the best track record so again everything is so unsure right now.

Thursday (7/14) - Ira doesn't have a breathing machine next to her bed at all!! She's still on a nasal cannula, but she isn't getting any pressure from it to help her breath. In other words...my baby can breath by herself!!! :):) She's just getting an oxygen flow through her nasal cannula and the hook up is coming from the wall, but there isn't one of those great big stands next to her bed anymore! (In the one picture you can see she has two stands next to her crib. The stand on the right with a square shaped box on it, with the colored numbers on the front... that's the one that's gone!) Other good news is that the doctors are for sure setting a game plan today with what to do with her mucus fistula. Hopefully, this will be a plan that they can stick to until they are ready to perform her last surgery, but we will see. Pray that the doctors can make their decision with confidence and certainty, and not be unsure whether it will work or not.

Sorry for not getting you all an update sooner! Every time I thought I was going to get to post something, the plan changed. I was trying to wait for the game plan to be some what set, but they still are unsure of it. So when I know, I will let everyone else know, but for now welcome to my world of patiently and anxiously waiting! :) lol

Again I'd like to thank everyone for their continued prayers for Linden and I, and our girls.

Ira Jo is quit something, our family is beyond smitten with her (as the pictures will show) and I hope and pray that one day, all of you who have been praying for her, will somehow get to meet the little bundle you've been so faithfully praying for. We've known as Ira's parents that her life has been a complete miracle from the beginning, but just yesterday, even the surgeon himself told us that he has seen many babies with bowel problems similar to Ira Jos' not live, so to him Ira's miracle has been something amazing to watch and be apart of. I know I would not be sitting here writing all of this good news if it wasn't for Gods' miraculous power and love, but Linden and I also wouldn't have been able to do any of this without the love and constant prayers from all of you. So please hear me when I say, we will never be able to repay you for all your prayers, but they are so greatly appreciated.

Love you all!

Linden, Lani, Ada Lou & Ira Jo Sink