3 Weeks

Tomorrow marks 3 weeks that we have had at home with our Hadassah...and what a joy they have been! We are thankful for every day that we have with her. You truly know the blessings of everyday life with your baby when you've spent 3/4 of her life in a hospital.

Haddie has been doing well. She has weekly doctors appointments both with Dr. T in Parkersburg and the neurology team and neurosurgeons in Akron. On Tuesday she weighed in at 10 lbs! Neorosurgeons are currently happy with her shunt but will take a CT scan on Tuesday just to make sure things are still okay.

Haddie has been doing awesome with her bottle. She still has the feeding tube and we feed her every 3 hours so she can gain weight. We always try using the bottle first and whatever is left we put in through her tube. Yesterday she crushed it. Her full feed is 75 MLs- 9AM she took 50mls; at noon she took 47 mls; and at 6PM she took the whole bottle; and then at 9PM she took 51 mls. Like I said, she crushed it. Which means we are moving closer to getting that tube out.

The only main concern we have is Haddies' alertness. She used to be able to track you with her eyes and was alert more of the time. We think her seizure meds have put her into a sleepy state. She does wake up some but isn't nearly as alert as she used to be. We plan on talking with neurology and seeing if we can lower the med levels. Haddie has been seizure free for 2 weeks now.

Help Me Grow has been here a couple of times and today one of the ladies hit the nail on the head regarding our biggest problem. She said it is very easy to just do custodial care for Haddie. Since Haddie doesn't respond much to us right now...she said it is tempting to just take care of her and not work with her on stimulation. That truly is a challenge. Kate and I are trying to "play" with Haddie more...but it is hard when she doesnt really play back. It's also hard because Haddie seems to have lost a little bit of the alertness she once had.

But we are going to do our best. We know she can do amazing things. She already has. We both think she will get back to where she was before the shunt infection and seizure meds...and she will go far beyond that. The key word for us is patience. You would think we would have learned that by now, haha! God is good and I'm glad He continues to teach us.

Enjoy some pics: Bathtime with naked Haddie

 Haddies first time with snow...she tried to lick a few flakes!