Serenity: 7 days old (Gestation age: 25 weeks 2 days)

Hello all. Today's update is a little less happy and exciting as some of the others. This morning began with a phone call from Serenity's nurse. That was scary to start with, as they normally wouldn't call you unless something was wrong.

The nurse was calling to tell me that Serenity was not doing very well. They had discovered that she had air in her abdomen on the outside of her intestines. They also had to put her back on the vent (tube going down her throat for breathing). The vent is technically a step backwards, but it puts me more at ease for the moment because it can do all of the breathing for her--and in her condition, she probably really needs that.

Upon hearing the news about our little girl not doing so well, and that the doctors needed to do a procedure, I made my way to the hospital as quickly as possible. Thankfully, my Mother-in-love was able to turn around (she was on her way to work) and take me. It was good to have someone with me so I didn't have to be there by myself.

When we got to the NICU, a few different doctors explained to us what exactly was going on. There was a hole somewhere in Serenity's intestines that was releasing stool and air into her abdomen. Thankfully they believe they caught it fairly early, which is a really good thing. But a procedure needed to be done to remove the air and stool. They needed to place a drain tube into her abdomen for everything to drain out. Unfortunately there was a risk of them hitting her liver when doing this, as their liver at this age takes up much more room in their body than an adult's liver does in an adult body. If they were to accidentally hit the liver, and it started bleeding, we would most likely lose her.

Praise the Lord, though, the procedure went well! They were able to get the drain tube in with no problems, and the doctor was able flush out a bunch of stool. I also just talked to the nurse and it appears that for now, the drain is working! Now we just have to wait and see if the drain will continue to work, and if we see improvement. Our hope is that the hole with begin to heal very soon, and they will be seeing less and less drainage. And also, we hope that there will be no infection.

The waiting game is the most difficult part. My want is for the stool to all be gone, and the hole to be fixed. But I know that her body needs time to heal.

So now we wait.

Please continue to pray for our little girl. She is being considered "stable yet critical". And this is a moment by moment kind of thing. None of the nurses or doctors where able to give us any percentages or statistics on the outcome of this situation, so we literally just have to pray the each moment her body will be healing and that each moment she will continue to get better.