The Ross Family

I apologize for not posting an update sooner, but this has been a crazy week so far...  On Monday we joyfully came to the hospital at about 8:30 am and as I walked in to the CVICU I saw a number of Dr's around Grace's bed and as I walked over to her, I was MORTIFIED with what I saw.  Our little angel was the most horrific color of yellow that you could ever imagine and her tummy was huge (as if a soccer ball was in there) and extremely hard and it was clear she was in a lot of pain.  The Dr's were working feverishly trying to figure out what was causing the problem.  Finally, by mid morning they identified that one of the catheters inserted through her umbilical cord had punctured a vein and her liver (so all of the fluids, medication, etc that they had been giving her was being dumped into her liver and belly).  They ended up draining almost 800 mL's of fluid from her belly (that's a ton of fluid for such a tiny little thing).  You know it's serious when a nurse comes over to you and says "keep praying," another doctor used the word "critical condition" to describe the state of your 7 day old baby, and once they found and addressed the problem, one of the surgeons said "I think she's going to be ok, I wasn't sure before."  I couldn't bare to be in the room as they were working on her (especially when I would hear her cry), so David (the strong Daddy that he is, was not going to leave his little girl's side) stayed in the room through everything, while I went and sat in a rocking chair right by the elevators, outside of the CVICU.  I sat in that rocking chair, rocking back and forth listening to worship music, singing out loud (without concern for who could here me) and crying.  I'm sure everyone that walked by thought I had escaped from a psych hospital, but it is where I found God's peace...worshiping Him!  The verse Romans 8:26-27 has never been more real to me "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express and He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will."  I couldn't even find the words to pray, so I just trusted that God knew my heart and thoughts and that the Spirit was interceding for me (what a powerful thing).  By God's grace the Dr's were able to identify the problem and address it (which is amazing considering none of the veteran nurses or Dr's had ever seen this happen)... Again, we should play the lottery with our odds :-).  Grace is certainly recovering from Monday's episode, but I have to say that we are super eager for her to be extubated because that breathing tube is miserable.  Today we are praying for a quick recovery of her liver and kidneys, that she responds well to getting her breathing tube out, and that she doesn't have an infection.

For my co-workers - they cultured the fluid from her belly and the gram stain grew gram positive cocci in clusters (that may sound like Chinese to some, but for my co-works it makes sense :-), so they are waiting for qualitative and quantitative results.  They started her on vanc and zosyn (despite my concerns about vanc) and sure enough her trough yesterday was almost 25 and today it's 17...  grrrr!  I guess another blessing from all of this is that I have become even more passionate about my job and what we do :-).

A few other blessings that came from Monday is that it showed me how MUCH I love Grace and want her!!!  I adore this child and everything about her ("up's" and all :-).  We were blessed to see the body of Christ in action, again.  The prayers, meals, love, and care for for Abby and Andrew have blessed us beyond measure!!!  I wish I could find the words to express our gratitude for all of your prayers, but since I can't I will pray and trust that God will some how show you for me.

Once Grace gets her breathing tube out, I will post more pictures...