Update

Bear with me as I'm typing from my iPhone....

Little Zoe is doing so well. She's a little jaundice today and had some breathing issues this morning (which scared the crap out of me), but she's doing well. Today is the first day that our little family is juggling our time to be with Zander and Zoe. Having a baby in the NICU is hard enough, but when you have a 19 month old at home whose world has been uprooted makes it ten times harder. The Zman has missed his mommy and daddy a lot and it breaks my heart.

I wish this upon no family to endure. The NICU is a very sad place to be in. Zoe is one of the bigger babies here (6 pounds). She shares a room with 7 other babies. Mike and I are here with 2 other families every day. We cordially smile but don't know what to say to each other. We all try not to stare at each others babies because you don't know what's wrong with them. Some are in incubators, some are just so tiny, and others you here what type of surgery they have to undergo. We feel Zoe is so tiny, but we have learned to keep that to ourselves because of our " neighbors". Seeing babies wheeled around with tubes is devastating to see, especially when it's your own child who gags constantly and wants to eat so badly. I'd love to "break the ice" with the two other moms, I just don't know how and when to do it.

I know Zoe's story is a bit confusing with all her heart abbreviations. Long story short she has Heterotaxy Syndrome (which was suspected all along). One in a million babies have this. She has an interrupted IVC, Double SVC, ASD hole, and VSD hole. They are going to watch the two holes closely to see if they close in the next few months, if not, open heart surgery will be needed. They won't do any interventions on her weird heart anomalies because it works for Zoe. We were waiting to find out if she had coarctation of the aorta, which would need immediate surgery. All babies are born with a PDA hole and they typically close around 48 hours. They were waiting to see when that PDA hole closed to determine if that coarc was truly there. Best news we received thus far is no open heart surgery at this time!

She has "polysplenia", multiple spleens. Usually in Heterotaxy, you either have no spleen or multiple spleens. All of which would need medicine to help fight off bacteria virsuses. But Zoe's spleens are functioning and they don't believe she needs meds.

Her bowl obstruction surgery is on Friday which I'm really nervous about. Putting a baby under anesthesia is so scary. She will have a scar in her tummy but it will just be a war wound story she can tell some day. She's so uncomfortable right now since she has a tube down her throat to pull out all her gook in her tummy.

The geneticists came around to determine if she had any genetic sydromes since she had alot of defects. But again they ruled everything out, she's a normal baby girl just with some problems.

The nurses all think she's one strong feisty baby. She has the longest fingers, toes and big feet!

She appeared worse in utero. Truly amazing to see her here and so strong. I had some extremely dark days during my pregnancy. I was actually nervous about my emotionally stabity, especially not knowing the unknowns. I cried alot in the hospital and told each nurse and my two doctors I was so scared. Hearing her cry was the best sound I've heard in a long time. She was screaming "mom stop worrying, I'm here and going to be alright". You know what... Everything is going to be ok. She's one of God's angels, she's proven that thus far.

So the next step is Fridays surgery. Her stay here depends on how she thrives. It could be 6 weeks or more. So now we just hope she stats strong, eats well so she can meet her brother and come home.

xoxo