Post op day 7...

PRAISES for today...
-Grace has continued to polish off her bottles without much spit up.  Those of you that know Grace know first hand what an immense blessing that alone is (I have shed many tears over her eating).
-David said that the "welcoming committee" is back, which means that Grace is back to welcoming everyone into her room with a smile, a wave and maybe some "interpretive dance" (she does this thing where she stares at her hands and moves them around like she is doing some sort of interpretive dance...  We love to watch it because it is so precious and hilarious all at the same time)
-they didn't end up doing a sedated echo today because her lungs looked more "wet" than the previous day (most likely because they had reduced her lasiks), so they didn't want to sedate her with that amount of fluid on her lungs.  They did an unsedated echo instead and Grace was actually super still for it!  It took forever to get the results back, but we finally got the reader digest version from the Nurse Practitioner (our Cardiologist, whom we adore, is in Argentina giving a presentation and we are missing him in a big way).  The gradient across her mitral valve is the same that it was in the OR (which is certainly a praise) and the pressure in her right ventricle is a little elevated, but they don't seem to terribly concerned about that (I don't think).

"Daddy must have read the blog because he gave me a fresh hair doo :-)"

PRAYER REQUESTS...
-Grace would be able to continue to wean off of oxygen completely and maintain her O2 sats

This is what Grace thinks her oxygen is for... a teething toy.  David is always having to reposition her oxygen because she likes to pull it out and chew on it or sit it on top of her nose.

-they would be successful in getting the fluid off of her lungs over the weekend and that her chest x-ray on Sunday evening will look much improved, so that they can proceed with a sedated echo on Monday at 9:00 am
-beautiful echo results on Monday!!!

This is the prayer that the Lord put on my heart this morning...  It is only in His strength that this is even possible because it is all too easy to be consumed by our own circumstances that we don't have enough left in us to bless others.  

Village, your prayers, support (financially and otherwise), encouraging messages, texts, etc continue to draw us to our knees before the Lord with immense humility and gratitude for you.  Thank you for allowing Him to use you in our lives in such profound ways!