7 Weeks Old

I'm a couple days late on this post, but Abby is now 7 weeks old! Sometimes I can't believe she's that old already, but most of the time I have a hard time grasping that it's ONLY been 7 weeks - so much has happened! With everything these past 7 weeks have brought with them, this verse really jumped out at me:

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 

- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Though the time since Aberdeen's birth has been incredibly trying, we have SO much to be thankful for.  I mean, look at this face:

Abby is healing beautifully from her skull surgery! The neurosurgery team comes in every morning (at the crack of dawn) to check on her incisions, and have nothing but great things to say about how she's looking. Now that the post-op swelling has gone down, you can see a little of her old head shape returning, but it's still a vast improvement in that we know that her brain now has room to grow!  PT, speech, and OT have been pleased with the strides she's making, and we're so thankful that because of this surgery we hopefully bypassed some problems we may have run into in these areas down the road. 

While Abby is recovering from her surgery well, she is still struggling to gain weight. The doctors have been adjusting her feeding plan daily to try to optimize caloric intake, but her heart is working so hard she just burns straight through the calories she's taking in. This requires an increase in either the calorie density of her formula or the volume of her feeds, both of which make her sick and contribute to her lack of weight gain. It's a painstaking process to go through, attempting to find the balance of what she needs and what she can tolerate. We haven't been making much progress on this front unfortunately, so we'll probably be here for a while still. Luckily, we're getting into a groove here in Cincinnati, and being here doesn't feel foreign anymore.

While we are incredibly thankful for ALL of the help we've received recently, I want to single-out my mom who was out here for nearly a month helping out once Jameson had to go back to work. I love you mama, and truly cannot express how much I appreciate you and the sacrifices you've made to make our lives a little easier. Thank you.