Serenity: 5 weeks 5 days (Gestational age: 30 weeks)

So I haven't written an update on Serenity in quite awhile. Most of this due to being extremely busy with all the critical craziness of last week--Serenity's major surgery and her body shutting down post-op. After that, I've busy trying to get some time in with my parents and with Ryan since time with all of them is limited and precious right now.

However, I have noticed several people getting antsy about how our little one is doing. So to save myself the stress of answering so many people, I figured it was time to sit down and MAKE time to update everyone.

As many of you know, last week Serenity Hope was fighting for her life. For several days she was being kept alive by medicines and machines. She was relying on life support. This was not an easy time for us, but we were able to make it through with the hope we have in our Creator. In Him alone we found our peace and our strength.

Toward the end of the week, the diuretics the doctors had Serenity on finally kickstarted her kidneys and they began working on their own--which meant TONS of pee! Never have I been so excited and happy about urine.  :)

This week is a lot slower paced. This week is more about waiting. We wait for Serenity's body to heal. We don't know how long this process will take, but we are just so thankful she is in the place she is at the moment.

The only real concerns that we have (other than the concern that anything can go South at any moment) is that her stoma and the surrounding area heals up nicely. Also, during her rough few days, the doctors had to give her a medicine through IV's because of her blood being too acidic, but the medicine gave her chemical burns. She has a burn in the elbow bend of her arm, and a burn on her forehead. The burn on her forehead seems to be doing okay, but the burn on her arm is not looking as good. They will be having some specialists coming to look at it in the future to see what needs to be done.

Other than those couple of things, everything is just a waiting game. Waiting to try to feed her milk so she can grow and be big and strong. Waiting for everything.

Thank you all for your love, encouragement, and prayers. We are grateful for you all.

As a side note, I would like to encourage you all, that if you don't hear from me, you can be assured that things are still going well, or about the same. Right now there isn't a lot of change going on. Just small little tweaks in medicines and machines. And a few small changes in her body. So there may be fewer updates. But rest assured that if something major happens, the first place I will go is facebook to give a status update about what is happening. That is the quickest, easiest way to keep thousands of people in the loop.