Blessed

What a blessing this baby girl is to us. She is full of spunk. Does things on her own timing. Loves to get a bath. Points people to Jesus. Looks like a little doll in hairbows! Is enjoying her first time wearing clothes. Can't wait to be held by her family. Looks at her daddy with big googly eyes. Makes mommy's heart melt.

Is OFF everything but her leads that monitor her oxygen saturation, heart rate, and respirations!!!

She has nothing flowing in to her body for the first time since she was born! There is nothing helping her to breath. She is happy and alert when she is awake and peaceful when she is asleep. Her chest is not pumping hard just to get the next breath. And for that, we are thankful.

Madelyn does still have a few periods where her respirations drop along with her oxygen saturation. They do not drop enough to set of the alarms on her monitor, just the alarms in mommy and daddy's hearts. We are learning to be more comfortable and less jumpy during those periods and realizing just how far she has come. She is such a good eater and seems to be putting on a little weight already! Her AMAZING doctor is just monitoring her progress at this point and running a few labs to make sure everything still looks good. She thinks we may go home on Monday. That terrifies me. Over the last 9 days Luke has constantly reassured me that she would be ok...that we would get to hold her again...that one day soon Madelyn would come home with us. His confidence was unwavering when my mind tried to tell me otherwise. And soon she will be coming home.

My dad got his long awaited turn at holding the little sweetie! She sure loves her Grandpa!
This was before she took out her IV!
Madelyn loved all the attention she got today. Aunt Marlo is a champ with girls (my brother is out numbered 3-1), so they enjoyed their time together this morning!
I love him! I love her! They are my favorites.
It's so awesome to see those big hands hold our little girl in such a tender way. She sure is a lucky girl to have such a great guy!
Yay for Madelyn's first bath! She was so covered with residue from ALL the tape and leads and different adhesives they used...she NEEDED a bath for sure! The good thing is...she liked it...a lot!





Our little girl looking clean and beautiful!
She finally got to put on some clothes! Everything was so huge on her. I rolled the sleeves up 3 times just to get this one to work!

Check out that hair!?!

Great Grandma Joyce loved seeing her girl! Maddie loved seeing her Great Grandma!
"Hi Dad!"
I cannot wait to frame this and put it on Luke's nightstand...they look so cute together!
Aunt Kenda telling Madelyn about all the fun things they will do together and more than likely how much she is going to spoil her!
"The Night Shift" aka Luke's family. I realized I had very few pics of them with Maddie and realized it is because they are normally with her throughout the night. Because of them, Madelyn has not once been left alone in her room since we arrived at Mother Frances. After taking over the NICU waiting room for a couple of days my parents got us a room at the hospitality house behind the hospital so that we would have a place to shower and sleep (which hasn't happened much-ha). Since Luke and I needed to be around and alert when the doctor would come around to make a game plan for each day, they would sit with her all night long. They are awesome!!
This is such a sweet picture! They are planning "girls only trips" I am sure.

I cannot begin to express our gratitude to our Father, our family, our friends, those we have never met but feel a connection to through their prayers, and to the amazing doctors, nurses and respiratory therapists who have looked after our little one as if she were their own!

We are truly blessed beyond words...
*Kathryn